


The Ties That Bind

by raevenly



Category: Kiesha'ra Series - Amelia Atwater-Rhodes
Genre: F/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:08:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 36,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28281432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raevenly/pseuds/raevenly
Summary: This is all Ollie's fault (okay, all Ollie and Qara's fault)Apparently I'm just re-writing Hawksong. All of it. I don't know what's possessed me. It starts off with good intentions but then there's this farmhouse and they just never seem to leave. If you like long, drawn out, characters just talking to each other without seemingly any plot, this is the WIP for you. I have no idea how long it will be, I didn't plan on it being this long.
Relationships: Adelina (Hawksong)/Zane Cobriana, Andreios (Hawksong)/Danica Shardae, Zane Cobriana/Andreios (Hawksong), Zane Cobriana/Danica Shardae
Comments: 25
Kudos: 14





	1. The Beginning Maybe????

**Author's Note:**

> Since this fic has become its own thing, I moved the first two chapters over to Frayed Knots, the draft catcher for TTB. If I ever go back and develop the kinksha'ra thing this started as, I'll letchall know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zane and Danica agree to meet at the Mistari camps for talks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is very probably the ACTUAL FIRST CHAPTER of this fic XD

They say the first of my kind was a woman named Alasdair, a human raised by hawks. She learned the language of the birds, and was gifted with their form.  
It is a pretty myth, I admit, but few actually believe it. No record remains of her life.  
No record except for the feathers in every avian’s hair, even when otherwise we appear human, and the wings I can grow when I choose--and of course the beautiful golden hawk’s form that is as natural to me as the legs and arms I wear normally.  
This myth is one of the stories we hear as children, but it says nothing of reality or the hard lessons we are taught later.  
Almost before a child learns to fly, she learns to hate. She learns of war. She learns of the race that calls itself the serpiente. She learns that they are untrustworthy, that they are liars and loyal to no one. She learns to fear the garnet eyes of their royal family even though she will probably never see them.  
Of course, I have.  
I have seen them look to me in fear and pain, a young prince’s final moments. I have seen them look at me in consideration, a new ruler sizing up the woman who would be his enemy.  
And I have seen them beneath me, cushioned on a pillow of down, soft as my own hair.  
They taught me how to hate those eyes.  
No one taught me how to read them.

Danica Shardae, Tuuli Thea

The Mistari Disa spoke to the entire hall as she concluded, “The best advice I can offer is this: Tie the two royal families. Make the two sides into one. If you are willing to trust each other, and willing to put aside your anger and your hatred, then Zane Cobriana, take Danica Shardae as your mate. Danica Shardae, have Zane Cobriana as your alistair.”

The Disa’s words rang in my head as I dressed for bed, numb and mechanical. The serpiente prince had cried out as vehemently as the rest, as I had sat in shocked silence. The rest had reacted; I had observed. I watched garnet eyes flash with temper, right alongside normally sedate avian gold. But I also watched Zane’s face crumple as the Disa kicked us out, his desperate hand reaching as if he could see the fleeting peace slipping through his fingers even as he struggled to grasp it.

Take Zane Cobriana as your alistair.

I still couldn’t process the idea. “Alistair” was a word that meant so many things to me, none of which matched the fiery cobra. My first alistair, Vasili, had been taken from me too young to truly remember him. And after that, alistair was a word most often followed by the ragged grief of a newly made widow.

It was not a word I could fathom associating with Zane Cobriana.

I realized my hands had been working the same button over and over. I shook myself, trying to return to reality, to keep moving through this latest shock. My composure was shot to hell, and I jumped when a knock sounded at my door.

“Shardae?”

The familiar voice of long-time personal guard--oh, hell, my best friend, sounded through the door. Rei had been the most outspoken at the Disa’s suggestion, and he hardly sounded calmer now, though at least he was hiding it better. Shaky, and craving the comfort of his familiar presence in this unfamiliar place, I bid him enter.

He paused in the doorway, and I watched his face as a thousand thoughts chased their way behind his eyes. Already I felt better, just seeing him as shaken as I. Rei had been my friend since childhood, and was the only person I ever truly relaxed around. I had seen him in his grief for his father, lost when he was but a boy of twelve. He had seen me cry over countless deaths, until I had grown up enough to no longer let the tears show. We knew the shape of each other’s grief; and we knew how important it was to have somewhere safe to let it out, to be weak. He was weak with me now, and I sank into that uncertainty gratefully.

“Dani,” he breathed, only after the door was closed firmly behind him. “I’m sorry I lost my temper in the hall today. It’s my fault we were banned from further discussion.”

I straightened my shoulders, gathering my strength as he fell apart. We did this in turns, my Rei and me, being rock and crash wave alike.

“I don’t believe you were the only one shouting,” I said lightly, fighting back the shiver that threatened at the memory of those flashing garnet eyes. Zane had been exquisite in his anger, a fine, shimmering thing. It had been beautiful, and terrifying, like a lightning strike. I wrapped my arms around myself, unable to stop my reaction.

Rei mistook the gesture for fear, and I suppose that was in there too, and placed his hands over mine. It was utterly too forward, unspeakably inappropriate, and far from the first time. Rei and I had always been each other’s exceptions, our refuge for strength and comfort. I leaned into him, resting my forehead against his chest. His arms encircled me, fitting around me perfectly through years of habit. I had grown since that first night we’d curled up together, frightened and alone and crying ourselves to sleep, and so had he. But we’d grown together, and his arms still fit around mine as I held myself and tried to keep from falling apart.

This. This was what an alistair should be. This feeling of warmth, of solidness, of safety.

Rei would be my alistair, and I would grow to love him in that way, in time. And even if I never did, friendship was still well worth protecting.

Alistair.

Protector.

Fighter.

My thoughts flashed on Zane Cobriana again, reaching out for the fleeting dream of piece. He was willing to fight for that dream. And I was cowering in the arms of a man I was too afraid to love, for fear of losing him.

Losing him to the war we were here to stop.

I must have tensed, because Rei pulled back, searching my face.

“Dani... You know I care for you, and I’ll always protect you. The thought of the snake coming anywhere near you...”

His hands flexed on mine, grip growing uncomfortably tight. I pulled away and he let me go, falling back into that careful soldier’s ready. The moment had passed. Time to put our weakness away.

“We’ll find a way, Shardae. I should go, let you sleep. Things will look brighter in the morning.”

I wished I had the courage to ask him to stay, to tell him that a night in his arms would bring me more comfort than the tossing and turning I knew was sure to come. I always slept better in Rei’s arms. But we hadn’t done that in years. And until I was ready to declare formally what the entire court already knew, he would keep his careful distance, expect in rare moments like this.

I closed my eyes, and I wished I could remember how to cry.  
-  
I began to undress again, but a flicker of movement caught my eye--

And suddenly I was face to face with garnet.

Zane Cobriana stood in my room, stepping elegantly from shadows and moonlight.

His hand was on my mouth before I could draw breath, the other cradling the back of my head.

“Please, I’m terribly sorry, but we need to talk, and so I need you not to scream.”

I stared at him wide-eyed, eyes lingering on impossible details--the stray strands of hair that fell across his face, the thick, sweeping curve of his stunningly dark lashes--as the world paused between one heartbeat and the next. I was utterly frozen, drowning deep in radiant red, the hypnotic gaze of the Cobriana garnet.

My people told stories of this gaze, the near-demonic power to enchant and posses. I forgot to breathe, drinking down those eyes, edges tight with pain. Pain... Zane Cobriana looked pained. It was barely there, just a tightness around the eyes, but his eyes were all I could see. We were not but a breath apart, and all I could do was gaze into those eyes, and nod.

Zane nodded to, head moving with mine as if uncertain of the motion’s meaning. Finally, he gave one certain shake, mind made up. He sprang away from me, leaping to the far side of the room as he released me, falling into a warrior’s ready. I just stared, mind refusing to process. Zane Cobriana had snuck into my room, and he was crouched and on guard against me.

“What.... what do you want?”

My mouth was cotton dry as I struggled to speak, tongue darting out to wet paper lips. They tingled with the memory of Zane’s fingers, soft and cool, so delicate, but so firm...

“To talk.”

He hedged his words, carefully controlled and guarded, just like his posture. But when I didn’t scream, or really react in any way, he relaxed, pulling himself up into a liquid, wary posture. Those elegant hands disappeared into pockets, but the underlying tension in his shoulder belied the casual gesture. He was a coiled spring, and no amount of leaning carelessly against the wall would disguise that.

I shook myself mentally, trying to come to grips with this fevered dream. No, no dream. In my dreams, I was often painfully aware I was dreaming, and able to pull together my careful avian reserve. Here, in this moonlit room, I was wide awake, and utterly lost.

“Won’t... won’t you sit down?”

Internally, I shrieked at myself. The mortal enemy of me and my kind had broken into my room for goddess knows what purpose, and I was observing social niceties. Won’t you sit down? What was the matter with me?

Zane smirked, a sardonic twist of his sculpted lips. My mind kept focusing on the most inane details--the perfect press of his cupid’s bow, the strong line of his jaw--as he folded himself elegantly onto a cushion. His long legs glittered in the moonlight and for a moment I thought he must have been in armoured form. But no, merely snakeskin pants. My gut filled with ice. The prince of the serpiente in snakeskin pants. Yikes.

“Why thank you, Danica. May I call you Danica?”

Mutely I nodded, sinking down onto my own sleeping pallet. I watched myself in bemused horror, like an out of body nightmare, as I sat and calmly waited for the prince of the serpiente to say his piece.  
Then again, compared to his dramatic entrance to my bedroom, this behavior was rather sedate. Formal even. The manners between us seemed almost absurd.

“Then you must call me Zane,” he insisted. I realized this casual chatter was his own nervousness, as my mute manners were mine. Neither of us really knew how to handle one another, and that somehow gave me courage. If he was shaken too, that somehow put us on more even foot.

“Alright... Zane. What did you come to talk about?”

He chuckled, the sound rolling through the dark like velvet. I shivered and wrapped my arms around myself, and madly, half expected Rei to wrap his hands around mind. Had only been moments ago that Rei had been in my room? If Zane had come any sooner--

“We were thrown out of the Mistari hall quite abruptly. And in all likelihood the same will happen tomorrow unless we have a chance to properly discuss their suggestion beforehand,” he said lightly, cutting through my thoughts. They scattered like early morning fog, as thin and ephemeral and impossible to hold onto. If he thought we were going to make any more progress here than we had in the hall, he was sorely mistaken. I couldn’t think my way out of an egg like this. If I’d been able to, I probably would have screamed for my guards by now. Really, it was only the utter bizarreness of the situation that had kept me from doing so already. We never trained for what I should do in the event of a security breach. In the Keep, it was unthinkable. And in the fields, I was quite literally surrounded at all times.

Zane had found my security’s one weak spot.

My blood ran cold.

“Are you here to kill me?”

Zane gave me a tired look and sighed.

“I just said I was here to discuss peace with you, Danica.” He shook his head. “What is even the point. How can they possibly expect us to entertain marriage when you’re too frightened to even talk to me?”

“I’m not--“

I snapped without thinking, pride pricked. He’d broken into my room, assaulted me--of course I was startled, I was also exhausted. At his chagrined look, I realized I’d actually spoken those thoughts aloud.

“Of course. It’s late. I apologize for any offense.”

I laughed. “Offense? Offense? Offensive was the way you acted so utterly repulsed at the mere thought of marrying me. This? I don’t believe there are words to cover what this is.”

Zane snorted. “I suppose that’s fair. If it was only a matter of your lovely body, well.” His eyes flicked up and down my frame, and I felt my cheeks turn scarlet. “And I’ve seen you have no trouble with mine, either.”

At that my face caught fire, enough that surely the room should have been ablaze with light. I clenched my fists in my lap and locked my gaze to the floor, counting slowly to ten. Shouting at him would bring my guards crashing in here for sure. And he had a point; we did need to talk. If we broke into a shouting match tomorrow, the Disa would simply kick us out again.

“Comments like that are also why we could never work,” I said hotly. “An avian alistair defends his pair bond’s virtue, not mocks it.”

“And is your pretty guard captain to be your pair bond, then?”

At that my eyes flew to his in complete shock. “Wha--“

“Oh don’t play coy, pretty Danica. I saw the way he held you. That is not a man unfamiliar with your body.”

I could only stare at him in open mouthed horror. Zane went on as if he didn’t notice.

“It’s not a deal breaker for me. I’m sure you don’t expect me to come to you as pure as the driven snow either. Keep him, for all I care. We both have heirs to produce, after all.”

Heirs?

Again, I must have spoken aloud, because Zane seemed to stop midthought, changing his words at the last moment.

“You’re the only Shardae left,” he said softly. “I at least have my sister and... her child.”

His gaze felt, soft and uncertain.

“Her announcement is what finally convinced me. I’ve already lost one sister with child to a soldier’s knife. I cannot bear to lose another. Irene was so frightened when she told me--“

His voice cut off with emotion. The strangled sound reminded me too much of Gregory.

I rose, not certain what I intended, but it was lost to Zane’s reaction anyways. The serpiente was off the wall and crouched almost before I’d finished standing, and his speed took my breath away. I cried out in spite of myself-- and the guards came pouring in.

Zane’s form flashed to lightning black, the shift to his cobra form nigh instantaneous. I threw myself forward, blocking Rei’s movement into the room, shielding him from Zane’s attack. It was utterly stupid, and pure instinct. I threw myself between the man that would be my protector, and the man who would pay lip service to the job in the name of peace.  
But Zane did not attack, rather doing on the evasive than the offensive. His liquid form shot between the soliders’ legs, gone and lost in the shadows before anyone could truly tell what had happened.

Rei stared into my eyes, lost in utter bewilderment. Neither of us knew what to make of my throwing myself before him, breaking every rule of our working relationship. I hadn’t acted as his queen. I’d acted as his dearest friend.

Rei reacted as my guard, pushing me aside and scouring the room with his eyes. Checking to make sure the room was secure before checking to be certain I was unhurt. The guards scattered around the room and hall, people spilling out at the noise and ruckus. Zane appeared behind a wall of guards, Mistari standing firm between the avians and serpiente. The tigers ushered us all back into our rooms, effectively placing us all under arrest.

Locking me into the room with Rei.


	2. Actually Chronologically Next *legasp*

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The fallout from Mistari Disaster, and the promise of better (if somewhat ragged) dreams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> omg this is ACTUALLY WHAT COMES NEXT who'da thunk it?
> 
> bonus: general's names are stolen from the mancer series, because names are hard

“What were you thinking?”

Rei exploded, frayed ends of his nerves finally snapping. It was enough to snap me out of my shocked horror, the dread that had taken me in the hallway. Seeing both sides, so ready to fight--

“Rei, this has to stop!”

We stood in the violence charged aura of the room, muscles still singing with unused adrenaline. The tension trembled through me, a humming string just waiting to be released. I couldn’t help but see Zane’s coiled readiness in Rei’s tensed hands, as he clenched and unclenched his fists, trying to burn off some of that fighting edge.

“He tries to kill you,” Rei said with a forced calm I knew he didn’t yet feel, “and you jump to defend him?”

“If he’d wanted to kill me,” I bit back, “he could have done so over an hour ago when he’d first arrived.”

Rei stared at me, scanning me from head to foot for some hidden injury. Then he looked me over again, taking in my interrupted attempts to dress for bed, and it was only when color rose to his cheeks and his gaze darted quickly to the side that I realized what he must think.

“You too?” I cried. “What is it about my unbuttoned blouse that makes every man that sees me think I have no virtue left?”

I clutched my arms tight about myself, partly to comfort myself, and partly to keep from slapping my guard and lifelong friend. I didn’t know what infuriated me more: that Zane thought he’d interrupted me and Andreios, or that Andreios somehow thought he’d interrupted me and Zane.

“Dani, I didn’t--“

“Didn’t sweep the room for her safety, or didn’t do you duty and slay the villain while you had the chance?”

We both whirled to see my mother, standing in imperial fury, flanked by all our people, and half the Mistari guards.

Rei dropped to one knee, fist to his chest in the deepest salute our people had to offer. The guards didn’t usually bother--it left them utterly defenseless--but my mother had already murdered Rei on the spot with her words, so what did it matter, the safety of his body?

“My lady--“

“Oh get up, Andreios. You won’t do anyone any good down there.”

Rei snapped to his feet, tall and still and perfect as any carved soldier. Only the furious crimson of his face gave any indication that his heart still beat.

“Mother--“

“Button your blouse, Danica, and put on your boots. We’re leaving.”

“Mother!”

The Mistari guards all flinched at my raised voice, anticipating further violence. I thought again of the scene in the hall, our little armies ready to clash, our insatiable war threatening to spread.

This had to stop.

“We just got here; we’re tired. In the morning--“

“In the morning we will be half-way home--flying over the remains of a failed ambush.”

“I-- what?”

I stared at mother, uncomprehending.

“The messenger came just now. General Cadmia found spies in the woods, waiting to shoot us down on our return. We must leave now, before they discover their plot has failed and regroup.”

“There’s no way. Irene assured us their soldiers had pulled back--“

“They lied, Shardae. It’s what they do.”

Apparently, so had we. Or else how would we have known their soldiers hadn’t retreated as promised?

I wanted to stay, to see if the Disa might offer some less outrageous suggestion, or if I had simply misunderstood her intention in my exhaustion from the long flight. But I also wanted to speak with my generals, and discover why they had ignored a direct order from their Tuuli Thea.

Assuming she had given it.

I let my flight lead me back home, fleeing the problem of Zane Cobriana, and fearing I was returning to a much bigger one.  
-  
“Routine maneuvers,” General Rinnman said. The raven was three score my senior, and one of the oldest among us. Our people could be quite long lived, if not cut down prematurely in battle. Rinnman and the other generals all had varying degrees of grey at their temples, but their bodies remained sculpted and sharp. While the generals did not engage directly in most battles, they still trained daily with their soldiers, each knowing every member of their flights and their exact capabilities. The Royal Flight was the best of the best, and most that survived to step back from active duty became our army’s generals.

My army’s generals.

“You had been ordered to stand down,” I repeated, not satisfied with the dismissive nature of his answer. This wasn’t my first time attending a meeting of the generals’ council. It was, however, the first time I had called one.

The flight home had done nothing to calm my doubts; the constant vigilance of Rei and the rest of the flight had only heightened my unease. I summoned my generals to me almost the instant we’d landed. The agitated guard had hastened to obey; the restless soldiers in the yard buzzed with the potential for action. I hated the sense of approval from them, that they were glad their soon to be queen was ready to act so swiftly. On the one hand it was true; I was primed and anxious for action. But it wasn’t for any battle or fray they would be taking part in.

“We have to keep up our conditioning,” General Viridian said. He was closer to my mother’s age than Rinnman. He had the grace to look somewhat apologetic in his explanation.

“The soldiers were restless, on edge. Sending them on scouting maneuvers made them feel less like sitting ducks.”

“We were sitting ducks,” Rinnman insisted. “Or would have been, if the scouting parties hadn’t found them out--“

“How do you know they weren’t scouting parties?” I demanded. The half dozen men just stared at me.

“How do you know the serpiente soldiers weren’t just doing exactly as you were, burning off nervous energy on routine maneuvers?” I pinned Rinnman with my molten gold eyes as I said it.

Rinnman bloviated, but in the end, didn’t have a good answer. None of them did. I called an end to the meeting with a pounding headache, insisting once again that we stand down. I told my generals that if they needed to fly scouting parties that was all well and good, but that their scouts were to report back before any actual engagement. I also gave them permission to put teams on additional fortifications, if they had that much energy to burn, around the outlying farms and settlements that lay between the serpiente and the Keep. Too long, those parts of our lands had been left more or less on their own, with the large focus of our forces spent on defending the keep itself, or engaged on the bloody fields that stood in the empty stretches between us and the serpiente. Like a scar on the land, those stretches of forest and field lay empty of any habitation for generations. I wondered nonsensically as I prepared for bed if all those years of blood would yield richer crops, or anything could be grown there at all.  
\--  
I dreamed of Zane, of Rei, of Vasili. The only thing that allowed me to sleep at all I think was exhaustion. I had been up for nearly two days straight by the time I’d finally retired. It mirrored my emotional weariness perfectly, and made for unshakable slumber.

My dreams walked a familiar path, adding little detours here and there but remaining mostly unchanged. I would dream of my most recent walk through the fields of blood--this time seeing the red of Gregory’s eyes leaking out in crimson tears to stain the world and leave his eyes grey and hollow and lifeless--and inevitably I would find myself a small child again, chasing after Rei, who had gone out to find his missing father...

“Rei...”

I called out for my friend, finding the man who would be my guard, and in the way of dreams he was somehow both Rei and Vasili, my fallen alastair. I had been too young when I’d lost him to remember much, so my mind often substituted the relationship I’d built with Rei for the man who should have had his place. I let myself fall into his arms, taking care and comfort in dreams in a way I wished I knew how to do in my waking life.

I turned my face up to him, but somehow it was a garnet gaze that looked back at me.

 _It's not a dealbreaker for me,_ he’d said. _We both have heirs to produce._

“Give me back my alastair,” I muttered to the dream, burying my face in his chest. It was a nice chest, broader and more muscled than his avian counterpart. Counterpart. Goddess, what a thought. What my mother and the other scandalized hoverhawks would think if they could hear me now.

“Not your alastair yet,” the dream Zane mused lightly. “I believe that was the point of all this?”

He gestured around us to the Mistari hall, grown up around us in the way of dreams. Though the ground was still the blood-stained grass and undergrowth of our own lands. But now tigers had been added to the fallen dead, my sick premonition of our war spreading come to life in my awful, unshakable dreams.  
Why couldn’t I believe in peace with as much certainty as I dreamed of war?

I turned away from the carnage, waking just enough to feel myself rolling over in my bed. Almost enough to wake, almost, but never quite enough. Zane’s voice was soft behind me.

“I wish we’d had a real chance to talk,” it said. I did my best to ignore it, willing my dreams to shift.

“I can’t stay,” he continued, and his voice sounded closer now. I hugged my pillow closer to me, whimpering softly in my desperation to wake, or change dreams, or something. Anything but this fitting torment of my guilty subconscious. I should have tried harder to stay. I shouldn’t have let my mother bully me out of the peace talks. She could have flown back to deal with the generals--

“I think I could learn to love you, Danica, impossible as it seems.”

The dream’s voice sounded directly in my ear, the breath of my guilty apparition brushing across my cheek. I thought I felt the barest caress of lips on my temple, as if this facsimile of my enemy could somehow absolve me and release me from my nightmares. He leaned over me and pressed something into my hand, a talisman against further bloodshed.

“Come chase better dreams with me,” he whispered, closing my clutching fingers around something smooth and hard. I gripped it the way I wanted to grip him, to hold any hand in this unending morass of memory and horror. It was said the first hawks could sing beautiful visions into their dreams, the first songs of my people being more spell than sound. Apparently all that remained of those gifts was a penchant for lucid mocking nightmares.

“It was meant to be my eldest sister’s.” The dream of Zane was starting to fade, retreating into the dark as the next dream prepared to take his place. Would I dream now of brutalized infants, or crushed eggs in a nest of hawks and serpents alike?

“I hope you will consider wearing it.” He laughed, a dark sound. “Grim as it may be. I’m afraid everything I have to offer you will be somewhat bloodstained.”

“Your majesty, we have to leave.”

That new voice almost startled me to wakefulness. But even the familiar unfamiliar voice was not enough to break me from my wretched nightmares.


	3. Huh still going in order

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Elanor plays a larger role in this story, and the Poors are allowed to exist. Also we blatantly acknowledge the economy (sort of) AND how utterly insane it is for Zane to just like, invite himself up to Danica's bedroom. Also, it is absolutely not at all sexy. Where has all the sexy gone? Why am I still going in order and not just jumping to the sexy bits?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WTF is wroooong with me???? why am I re-writing this whole thing??????? I could be writing Ace!Danica kissing Zane because she sees no reason not to, or OT3 Rei speaking up about how he himself seems more interested in touching Zane than Ace!Danica seems to be (this story's Danica is very much NOT Ace, but those are other ideas I've had floating around (because OF COURSE i've had other ideas)) but nooooooo. i wanted to explore people's families and their backgrounds and what the larger shape of the world is and maybe explain some of the bizarre isolation of the avians and UGH WHYYYYYYoajl;dsnl;sddafjifrfk'lsdm/!!!!!!
> 
> Enjoy :)
> 
> Also, apparently I can't spell "occured" or "occassionally" right on the first try. Ever. Go team.

“My lady wake up!”

I was shaken awake by my lady in waiting, Elanor. I clutched at her shoulders, in a move utterly out of character for me, but she returned my embrace nonetheless. Elanor, along with Rei, had been my closest companions since the loss of my alastair. Though neither could ever take Vasili’s place, they did their best to fill his roles: Rei as my protector, and Elanor as my rock.

“The dreams again, my lady?”

I nodded and burrowed into Elanor’s chest, taking in the clean, crisp smells of open air and clean laundry, trying to drown out the lingering sense memories of the bloodied fields of my dreams. Elanor smelled like the wind, bright and bitter cold, and suddenly I longed for a flight myself.

Sensing the shift in my mood, Elanor pulled back, giving me the space to compose myself. I was allowed a few moments of weakness upon waking, but every morning when Elanor did up my amour of fine hair and clothes, I put my face together in a deep way.

“What time is it?” I asked, trying to ground myself.

“Nearly nightfall, my lady. I came to fetch you for dinner, but...”

She trailed off, and neither of us had to say aloud that such dreams rarely left me with any kind of appetite. Elanor would see to it that something simple and cold was made available to me, on nights I missed formal meals, and would often keep me quite company through sleepness nights, taking advantage of my rights to the frivolous use of candles at all hours to work on her embroidery.

Her talent for cloth was what had brought her into my service; Elanor’s entire family had been collected to the Keep like many other artisans, brought into the shelter of our tower walls to fill our market. Pretty as it was to think of my family preserving art for art’s sake, the reality of our market and court was that our artisans provided us with an essential resource. Throughout the long and costly war, precious time and materials had been devoted to silversmiths and gem workers and seamstresses and silk painters, because the rulers of the falcon nation loved beauty, and our people were as intimately familiar with crafting around the challenge of demi-wings as they.

The shm’Ahnmik were one of the few nations that made trade with our people, along with the enterprising Desmodians, the people of the bats. Our Keep was heavily fortified in favor of those with wings. The Desmodians brought goods sold at a premium, as the only merchants truly available to us. The falcons...

For generations, the falcons had offered every Tuuli Thea the same proposition as a coronation gift: accept their aide, and join the falcon empire. Every queen down to my mother had refused, and I intended to do the same. Our refusal did not stop the falcons’ delivery of am’haj, the deadly poison with which we tipped our arrows, nor did it stop their occasional visitors from coming to make trade. The precision and prowess with which their warriors defended their merchants was truly spectacular, and surely dearly tempted every queen who witnessed their efforts to accept their aid. I don’t know why my mother refused them, nor her mother before that. Perhaps there was some element of the bargain I had yet to understand. Perhaps, very soon, I would be tempted with such a bargain. I did not know which direction I would choose.

As I thought these far away thoughts, my fingers turned over and over and bit of hard metal. I realized my absent behavior only when the flash of a jewel caught my attention.

In my hands was an elegantly woven signet ring, slender and crafted for a woman’s hands.

For a Cobriana hand.

I dropped the ring in shock, the twisted metal glinting on the way down. It rolled under the bed--and to my utter shock, Elanor dove after it.

I watched my lady’s maid and childhood friend scramble after the Cobriana ring and thought surely I must still be dreaming.

Elanor would not look at me as she emerged from under the bed, treacherous ring clutched to her chest.

“Elanor?”

Her eyes darted up and away, an air of something desperate in them as they flashed.

I realized suddenly where I’d recognized that unfamiliar voice from in my dream.

My dream that hadn’t been a dream.

“Elanor. Stand before your Tuuli Thea and explain yourself. How did Zane Cobriana come to be in my bedroom while I was sleeping?”

I did my best to remain calm, and also to play back the entire “conversation” before it faded. He’d said the ring had been his sister’s. He’d wished he had something less bloodied to offer me.

He’d said he could learn to love me.

Avians almost never fainted. Our kind are built for the mountains, for the thin, chilled air of flight and high altitudes. But as I replayed the “dream” in my mind, I felt the world start to go grey around the edges.

“My lady!”

Elanor sprang from the floor, attempting to catch me as I swayed on my feet. I managed to sink back to the bed, but my mind was whirling.

“What... could you possibly... have been thinking?”

I panted the words around a thundering heart, the shock and the fear warring with my desire for control. I was Danica Shardae, heir to the Tuuli Thea; I would not faint, I would not vomit, I would not scream. I had witness far worse horrors than this. Zane had come to my room in the Mistari camps to talk. Was this more of the same?

But Elanor...

“You are the only one who dreams of peace.”

Her voice was tight with emotion, too high and trembling. But the thread of steel that ran through it, the absolute conviction that gave her the power to speak thusly to her Tuuli Thea--

Or maybe, she was just speaking to a friend.

“A lot of us out on the edges, we don’t see this war the way the soldiers do.”

“Soldiers” was nearly spat, a harsh bitterness that made the word nearly a swear.

“They trample fields and commandeer beds and rations, not a care for who it puts out in the cold.” She held her chin high as she spoke, hard eyes fixed firmly ahead. Like this story was a bit of shrapnel to be removed. And the only anesthesia she had to dull it with was her resolve, and tight avian reserve.

“We know they’re meant to keep us safe, but when we see the shadows of the flights overhead... The ravens are the worst. They mean someone important is on the battlefield--oh no offense to you, my lady!”

She finally did look at me now, because those important somebodies had all been my kin. She held a hand out like she might offer comfort. But her other hand still held the ring clutched in her lap. It was my turn to stare straight ahead, to gird myself up in my reserve.

“Continue,” was all I could manage. It came out perfectly level.

Elanor swallowed hard.

“We trade with who we can out there. Serpents love pretty things too, did you know that my lady?” When I made no offer of an answer, she continued. “Scarves, mostly, at least from my household. They give them as gifts to their beloveds--oh, but you don’t really care about why I did what I did, do you? You want your peace, but do you even know what it would look like?”

Of course not. None of us did. We’d been locked in this war for generation upon generation--or, at least, those of us of the Keep. I was beginning to suspect that my castle walls were built just a little too high. Or that I’d not tried hard enough to peer over them. Elanor was my friend, had been my comfort since the loss of Vasili and my eldest sister--but what comfort had I offered her? A warm bed, some extra hours of candlelight for her needlework? I didn’t even know her family, beyond the mother, father, and sister than had been taken to the Keep. Did she leave cousins out there on the edges? Childhood friends? An alastair? I’d assumed if she’d had one, he’d have been brought to the Keep with her. But what of his family, and so on? They couldn’t al live in the Keep. There was only so much space.

Elanor continued when I didn’t speak, as if she’d never interrupted herself at all.

“They trade in meat, furs, food. The serpiente land is more arable than our toehold in the mountain. Good for keeping safe, but not so good for growing things.”

I finally snapped. “We have fields on the lee of the mountain! Everyone is welcome to them--”

“And we don’t all live on the lee of the mountain. Your majesty.”

She added that last as an addition, though whether it was to placate or underscore I couldn’t say. She’d never cut me off before. Neither of us seemed to quite know what to do with it now.

Overwhelmed and frustrated, my gaze fell to her clutched hand again. I could almost see the ring burning within, the onyx ring seemingly overlaid with the burning red of Cobriana eyes.

“What does all of this have to do with Zane, Elanor? Why is his sister’s ring in your hands?”

I deliberately did not think about how I knew it was his sisters, or what Zane’s intent in leaving a woman’s ring for me might be. Elanor opened her hand, offering the ring up to my view. Her gaze stayed fixed on it in her lap.

“I was out visiting my aunts while you were away. You were supposed to be gone for days, at least, and you’d said the Mistari had limited your party size--“

“I’m aware of why I didn’t ask you to come with me, Elanor. Please, just explain.” I pinched the side of my nose, rubbing a small circle over my temple with my thumb, trying to relieve the headache. “I... I’m too overwhelmed to be mad. I just want to know what’s going on.”

“He wants to meet with you, my lady.”

I stared at her, at her steady, earnest gaze. My eyes were too wide, I could feel it around their edges. It took too many tries for me to say,

“So you brought him to my rooms?”

She dropped her eyes again, bashful.

“He... is very charismatic, my lady. Very passionate. He came riding up on the biggest black horse I’d ever seen, and he promised it and all that was in his saddle bags if he’d just find a way to get a message to you...”

I could see that, actually. What little interaction I’d had with Zane, I could at least understand why Elanor would find herself doing things she’d normally never dream of, when faced with the heat of that flashing garnet gaze. Zane had a way of making the astounding seem perfectly plausible, of the daring to be his absolute right, and would you like to come along and seize it with him? I felt creeping up my face just thinking about it. I was glad Elanor’s eyes were downcast.

“And he just so happened,” I ventured, “to find the house of my lady in waiting?”

“He said it was Fate.” Her voice carried the edge of a hysterical giggle, as if the spectacle of it all, even just in memory, was enough to make her feel faint. It wasn’t like Elanor to be so emotional--but then again, it wasn’t like any of us. At least not on the outside.

“He said, 'A’le-Ahnleh. By my will and the will of Fate, we have been brought together to build this impossible dream'. Oh, my lady, if you could have seen him---“

She stopped then, with a little startled sound. I jumped, the surprise of it making me flinch.

“What?”

“Oh you will see him, my lady. You must. He and his guardswoman are waiting at my aunts’ house for you this very night.”


	4. The Oaths that Bind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh look a real chapter title today :P
> 
> Danica has some thoughts and does some queenly shit. Also, magic, because quite frankly there can never be enough magic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone wants to name either these Ravens or the upcoming aunts, feel free :P

I flew out with Elanor under cover of twilight. I noticed the guards that peeled off to trail us, just as I knew there was no help for them. We would land a discrete distance from Elanor’s aunts’ home, and I would explain to my guards as she went on ahead to prep the house.

To prep Zane.

Zane Cobriana was sitting in an avian farmhouse, with two women my family had not deemed important enough to save. Were Elanor’s aunts any more or less deserving of safety and security than Elanor’s parents, or younger sister? I couldn’t help but think of the younger brother I’d just lost, and the one Zane had as well. Bitterness rose up in my throat, a cold jealousy that Elanor’s family was mostly intact, while mine was not. I thought again of Vasili, brave and noble, but those fine traits not enough to spare him. But Elanor’s clever hands, her eye for color and detail-- Why had my parents not chosen me a tailor, or poet, or painter or jeweler. Why had my heart been given to a man almost guaranteed to die? Why couldn’t they have given me an alastair that would live?

But if they had, would I still be flying out to meet Zane Cobriana now?

Perhaps not. But perhaps, we might have stayed in the Mistari lands, and had found peace another way. Or perhaps, if my father had not been taken by this war, my mother’s heart would not have gone out of the fight, and they might both be leading us into further bloodshed yet. There were too many threads to this cloth, too many stars to this pattern. A shift in one could lead to countless futures, and no one but the mythical seers of my ancestry could say which ones could be shifted safely. And even that was probably a pretty lie, dreamed up by people who longed for a hero-queen to save them, some legendary figure who could do impossible things, like charm the secret of flight from the hawks, or sing her dreams into being. Our line still held some little of her gifts, but they were greatly diminished from the myths of what Alasdair and her brothers could theoretically do. I didn’t put much stock in myths; they were about as useful to me as my too-perfect recall in dreams. Maybe someday, a hawk would be born again than could sing a real peace into being. My day had to make do with a queen that sang peace to a dying prince, and flew out under cover of night to consult with another.  
\--  
The guards who’d come with me were relatively new Ravens; many had had to be promoted quickly to replace all those lost in the battle that had cost me my brother. So while I knew their faces, I had yet to commit to memory their names. I had to admit, I’d not made as much effort as I could have. I’d allowed myself that one small bit of fatalistic wallowing in the wake of my brother’s death. What was the point of learning any of their names, if they were only going to fall?

But it meant that now I didn’t quite now how to deal with me. On the one hand, they didn’t have quite the familiar air with me that those who had known me in my youth did. On the other, they probably felt they had something to prove. I drew myself up as regally as I could, and prepared to issue my first command as queen. Strike that, second command, and I had yet to officially take the mantle from my mother. But no one had fought me when I’d reissued the order to stand down, and this most certainly counted as an act of my reign rather than my mother’s.

“I trust you’re aware that I issued an order of non-aggression to all the Flights?”

They both nodded, and remained mute. Was that a good sign, or a bad one?

I didn’t have enough experience commanding soldiers to know. I’d just have to assume it meant respect, and act as if it was a given. The Generals’ Council discounting me was to be expected, I was new, fresh, and a child in most of their eyes. But these soldiers didn’t appear to be much older than me, and they had passed the tests of skill and loyalty that Rei personally oversaw as the captain of the Royal Flight. I took a breath, and pressed on.

“I ask you both to keep that in the forefront of your mind, and your vows as members of the Royal Flight. I...” I had to be better than this. My hands were trembling like winter aspens, and I needed every ounce of control I could muster. I was honestly more terrified now than I had ever been in the fields.

“I am about to meet with Zane Cobriana, Arami of the serpiente, in an attempt to continue the talks that were halted so abruptly. I ask that you keep me safe, but refrain from any lethal action. Is this a promise you can make me?”

I don’t know where the words came from, but it felt right that I should ask them in this way. To ask them to honestly assess their abilities, and their commitment to peace. I couldn’t command the hearts of my people to change; I could only ask, and lead by example. I was willing to treat civilly with the man that would be my former enemy. If they could not do the same, then I would simply not ask them to.

I also wouldn’t allow them to accompany me.

I didn’t think it prudent to mention that just yet.

The taller of the pair stepped forward, and some trick of the light and shadows made him look hauntingly familiar. It had to be a trick of my heart, but no, his words confirmed my perceived resemblance.

“Vasili was my cousin, Shadae.”

I could absolutely see the familial lines in his face. The squareness of jaw, pressed with a faint dimple at the cleft, the hard set of his eyes under too stark a brow. I had always thought him to be scowling as a girl. Now, on his cousin’s face, I saw it was just their bone structure at work, making a neutral face seem too severe. Pain creased lines at the corners of those familiar brown eyes, and I had a flash to see the man my alastair might have become, the way pain and joy and time might have painted lines on the face I only remembered as an unfinished boy’s.

I felt tears press at the back of my throat.

Vasili’s eyes from his cousin’s face shone too bright, too wet, too wide.

The other Raven shuffled slightly, sighting on something behind us.

I turned, loss spinning quickly to fear as I remembered what awaited us, but it was only Elanor, hurrying towards us with a shuttered lantern.

I turned back to my men with a fierce hiss. “Can you swear it?”

Vasili’s cousin nodded. “I swear, my lady Shardae. The paths we’ve walked before have only led to one thing. I am willing to follow where you lead.”

“And you?”

The other Raven looked even younger, and I couldn’t help but see the echoes of the brother I’d just lost. He must be an exceptional fighter to have made it to the Royal Flight so young. Either that, or we were desperate for options.

Or perhaps he simply had a youngish face. Either way he nodded, but that wasn’t good enough. I would not let anyone in the presence of the last remaining serpiente prince without their word of oath. Words held power in avian society, real, binding power. An oath sworn to their queen would be binding, and while we normally didn’t make such demands outside of formal ceremonies, I pulled on that power now.

“Swear to me, on all the lives you’ve lost, that no more lives will be taken this night. That if you feel I am in danger, you will cover my retreat, and nothing more. No more deaths.”

The Raven swallowed, visibly paling, but nodded again.

“I swear that unless my monarch commands it, I will take no lives this night.”

I felt the power prickle, raising the feathers at the back of my neck. We spoke little of our ancestral language, the old tongue shared by avians, serpiente, and falcons alike. But remnants of it remained, in our most formal of speech, and it was with those words that I swore,

“Then I will strive to be a worthy queen, and once I have taken my vows, we will have peace.”  
Again, I didn’t know what had so moved me, but as I spoke the words, I felt the night echo with them, and the land accept them, as readily as it accepted my people’s blood.


	5. In which Danica pulls fucking rank

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danica FINALLY makes it inside the farmhouse to have a friendly chat with Zane

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gonna go ahead and invent some more lore, because why not. It's always bothered me to have the royals on the battlefield, but what if they possessed abilities the common soldiers did not? So, I've decided the hawks have song magic, and Danica in particular can sing some small healing/soothing. Sometimes she saves lives, other times she does like she did for Gregory and just makes the passing easier. So yeah, dance magic dance meets sing magic sing.
> 
> Also, if anyone has a good suggestion for how to address the ladies of the house, feel free to let me know. I am equally dissatisfied with "Ladies Lyssia" and "Aunties Lyssia", but realised I was spending WAY too much time on it so just let it go
> 
> Also also, I don't remember if i'm spelling Kain and Kaya right, because I totes adopted those figures into Asylum's mythos so *shrugs*

Prepping my guards to meet Zane was one thing; prepping myself...

I drew a deep breath, focusing on the way it filled my lungs, expanded my chest. Breathing this way mirrored the beat of my golden hawk’s wings, and did much to calm me. It was too great a show of nerves to display in my avian court, but out here, in the dark, with only my three fellow co-conspirators to see me--

It still felt like too much, but I was about to willingly approach Zane Cobriana, with his sister’s signet ring in my hand.

_I’m afraid everything I have to offer you will be somewhat bloodstained._

Zane’s words had a way of replaying in my mind, again and again. He had a beautiful voice, rich in tones and timbre, and put to good effect. It was clear he was a man who was accustomed to addressing people, and to having those people listen. When I spoke to my generals, it was with a muddled mix of bargaining, pleading, and command I wasn’t certain would be heeded. When Zane ordered his people to back down, had they listened? Had that party Cadmia and her flight found in the woods really been an ambush? And if it had, was it with or without their monarch’s blessing?

And what would happen to them when their rulers finally returned?

Because for Zane to be waiting here, at this farmhouse on the edges of our respective territories, he must not have returned home to the serpiente palace yet. No, he had come straight to me, on Elanor’s wings, to deliver this engagement ring.

_I think I could learn to love you, Danica, impossible as it seems._

_Serpents love pretty things too, did you know that my lady?_

I knew I was beautiful, with a finely crafted body colored in all shades of gold. The clothes my clever Elanor devised for me walked the perfect line between elegance and functionality, beauty and modesty. And Zane hadn’t been shy about admiring what her handiwork put on display--but was that enough? He’d suggested we both keep our own lovers; had he meant it? And in what possible capacity? The indolent serpiente might accept a figurehead queen while another woman grew round with their next prince--whether of Zane’s own get or his sister’s--but if I were to attempt such a thing? How would it even be done? An alastair’s oaths were some of the most binding of our peoples--and spoken from a royal tongue in the heart of Hawk’s Keep, even more so. I might literally lose some of my powers as queen if I became forsworn.

Of course, if we were no longer at war, my powers would no longer be needed on the battlefield.

But the gift to soothe and lightly heal with song was too important to be parted with. The Shardae sang strength to more than just soldiers--when there were more of us, we sang at every birth, every wedding, every sickbed, every funeral.

_One for sorrow, two for mirth, three for a wedding, four for a birth..._

“My lady?”

Elanor lightly touched my shoulder, startling me. The three of them had clearly felt the magic of my promise to them as future queen, and had doubtless been giving me the space to commune with my powers. But Elanor was right; the night was wearing on.  
And Zane was waiting.  
-  
The scene in the farmhouse was almost too surreal for belief.

Zane Cobriana, Arami of the serpiente, was serving as a yarn swift.

Hands held a careful width apart, he held the strands that Elanor’s aunt was quickly winding onto the noddy. It was clear she was working with a swiftness, but just as clear that it wasn’t from unease. It looked for all the world that she was simply trying to free him up from his woolen prison, so that he could attend to his proper duties as a monarch.

Zane looked as if his duties as a yarn horse were just as a pressing, and was giving the threads his complete attention, even as he sat relaxed in chair and chatted with the weaving women.

“And so the siblings chased each other across the sky, Kain pounding after his sister Kaya, who kept spilling fire as she ran, painting the sky with light, and earning outraged shouts from her brother with each drop spilled-- hold.”

That last was for his guard, the white viper from the camps. I almost surprised to find just the pair of them, instead of the entire entourage, but I was not surprised that this was the guard who stayed with her prince.

_I’m sure you don’t expect me to come to you as pure as the driven snow either._

His guard could have been carved of ice, for all her hard strength and cold beauty. She’d gone from indolently bored against one wall to trembling bow-taunt just behind him. Her fingers hovered near her thighs, and the pair of knives strapped there. Her perfectly white hair bristled around her, like a cat making itself large in the face of threat.

Or like a magician raising power.

“I said hold, Adelina. You are not to strike someone who wears a Cobriana ring.”

Her gaze flicked to my hands, which were empty of jewelry and half-raised as one approached a wild animal. In fact it was Elanor who had carried the ring; I had not yet dared take it back from her. I wondered if that detail would prove to be a terrible oversight. Zane’s words had a similar of formality to the oath’s I exchanged with my people.

But Adelina’s gaze went from me to my two Ravens, with their full kit of armor and weaponry.

“My Arami--“

“Don’t, Addie. We’re all just here to talk.”

We were hardly just hear to talk, especially given his comments about the Cobriana ring. But Adelina dropped into what I could assume was a soldier’s parade rest, and I felt the men behind me release their own ready tension.

Of course, that didn’t stop them from flanking me as I stepped farther into the room.

I watched Adelina flinch, and felt us all react to her reaction. I bit back a weary sigh. How were we supposed to get anything done if all our attentions were on each other’s actions.

“Gentleman, he rode all this way to continue our peace talks.” I put heavy emphasis on the word “peace”. “Kindly stop treating this kitchen as a battlefield. Aunties Lyssia, thank you for opening your home to us. Arami Zane, thank you for coming to continue our talks. I am sorry the circumstances of them have been so inconvenient.”

Zane rose from his seat to give a smooth bow--though he never took his eyes off my guards as he did so.

“Good evening, Danica. Our dear aunties have been excellent hosts--and I’ve admired their works on our dancers.”

I blinked at that, caught utterly off guard. I know Elanor had mentioned trading food for fine cloth, but still. It had startled me--and from the look in Zane’s eyes, I couldn’t help but feel it had been meant to.

Suddenly, I was much less nervous. I was tired of being discounted, ignored, placated, and now made fun of? I was Tuuli Thea, and marriage to him or not, I would be queen, and I would be treated as such.

“Ladies Lyssa, is there somewhere I might talk to Zane in private?”

The protests all rose at once, reminding me too much of Mistari hall. I drew on the power of my voice to raise it above all the rest.

“I am Danica Shadae, heir to the Tuuli Thea. The only person in the room who is even remotely qualified to argue with me is Zane Cobriana himself. And as I believe he intends to propose marriage to me, it is within my right to demand a little privacy for this intimate moment.”

I admit to enjoying the shocked silence that followed. The look on Adelina’s face, however, made my blood run as cold as the icy fury in her winter blue eyes.


	6. We'll find a way

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which promises are made, with no idea how to keep them

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> still banging out the next bit, but I needed to get this out here so I could stop the pressure in my chest. Unproofed currently, will possibly go back over it with a comb, might not. Gotta ride this wave while I have it
> 
> eta: e'd :P

I wish it could have been any room but a bedroom, but how much opulance had I expected from a farmhouse on the edge of the kingdom? Honestly, that they had space such as this was probably a testament to how well they worked their crafts. Or maybe not. I truly how no idea how most of my kingdom lived, I was quickly realizing.

I was also stalling, trying very hard not to think of what I was doing as I paced the room while Zane sat politely on the bed, the only furniture in the room.

It was not helping things.

Adelina’s look had said more clearly than anything else could have that she at least had rolled around in the not so purity of Zane’s snow. Goddess, what a clumsy metaphor. I wanted to speak poetry, to give my thoughts the same imagery and beauty that Zane spoke with, but all I could feel was the cold lump of ice in my gut, mirrored by Adelina’s stare. It was as if she fixed me in that pale gaze still, and it was almost enough to keep me from going through with it.

Almost.

I turned on Zane, arms flapping helplessly at my sides.

“Say something, will you? I hardly no where to begin.”

Zane smiled, and even with its hint of mocking, it still flared heat from my belly to my cheeks. Gods, that smile. He was cruelly beautiful, and that smile said he knew it. It made it almost impossible to feel the queen equal to his king, knowing he knew so much more about bedrooms than I.

This isn’t a bedroom thing, I firmly reminded myself. Current surroundings notwithstanding.

“Haven’t you said it all, beautiful Danica? I’m here to propose marriage to you.” His eyes flicked to my hand. “Though we seem to be short one ring.”

“Elanor,” I started, turning for the door.

“Don’t.”

The word was soft, but it froze me in my tracks. I stood with my back to him, willing myself to turn around, to face him--

But he was suddenly at my back, the heat of him so intense, so like the way Rei would approach me--

I whirled, suddenly so much easier to face him than let him stay at my back and lie to myself. This wasn’t Rei, would never be Rei--and if I could go through with this, would never be Rei again.

“I thought serpents were supposed to be cold,” I said nonsensically, and with more bite than was really polite. But curt anger was far superior to fright or... longing. I could admit at least to myself that having him at my back had filled me with longing. Not for him exactly, but... for letting go. For letting myself love someone, take comfort in someone.

I had always assumed it would be Rei, knew it could only be Rei, but now...

“And I thought avians were supposed to be polite.”

I stepped back from Zane with a little gasp, shocked that a cobra of all people would school me on my manners. Wasn’t I allowed a little emotion even in this! But he was right; now was not the time to come apart.

“Forgive me, Arami Zane. I meant no insult.”

Zane made a sound low in his throat that stood all my feathers on end. It was a simple grunt of displeasure, a swallowed word, a stifled comeback, but it curled through my gut in a swirling mix of fear and titillation.

He was still so close.

I could feel the door at my back, my chance to flee, and simultaneous pinning me in. I was backing myself into a corner, letting Zane Cobriana push my back to a solid point of no retreat. I felt the scream start to bubble up--

“Danica. Breathe.”

I did exactly the opposite, holding my breath as I wanted for his next action. He made that sound again and stepped away, spinning to begin his own restless pacing.

On the one had, the motion was frightening, all that pent up potential. On the other, he’d given me room to breathe.

“How can I possibly ask you to marry me when you can barely breathe in my presence? This isn’t going to work.”

The words came not with the anger I expected, but almost a sort of... despair?

Defeat.

“Zane...”

I reached out for him, not knowing what I intended to do, but knowing that I didn’t want to leave him feeling so helpless.

He stopped his pacing, blinking at my outstretched hand. I watched his chest rise and fall with a breath of release. He spoke with his eyes still on my hand, as if afraid I might bolt again if he looked directly at me. He probably wasn’t wrong.

“You meant to offer me comfort at the Mistari camps too, didn’t you?”

I nodded, realized he might not have seen it, and gave a surprisingly firm, “Yes.”

To my utter amazement, I didn’t flinch when he reached out, took a step closer, and brushed the barest touch of fingertips against my palm.

My heart thundered, my whole body trembling except for that hand, held so carefully still. I would not flinch. I would not.

His hands were soft with lanolin, silken with a familiar texture like Elanor’s. As he laid his palm gently in mine, I thought of all the nights of comfort from Elanor’s hand, of how good it felt to sleep curled up beside someone else. I thought very firmly of comfort and safety, and not of the other things such long, clever fingers could do. It was a small mercy that I was so uneducated in the ways of lust at that moment. If I’d had more than daydreams and my own infrequent self-explorations, I doubt I could have beared it. But thinking of Zane’s hands only as a source of comfort, of knowing he saw the gesture for what it was... It gave me the strength to bring my other hand to rest over his, to not panic over the fact that that movement brought me another step closer, to look at that elegant face that was so pointedly not looking at mine.

He clasped his other hand to ours, joining us both, and went slowly to his knees.

“Please. Danica Shardae, please. In whatever way you can think to help me end this, please. I am entreating you to take me as your mate, your general, your slave, just help me end this.”

Slave?

I swallowed hard.

“Zane, please, get up. You said yourself it would never work--“

He turned those crimson eyes up to me, shining with open tears. I couldn’t breathe. Of all the horrible things legend said he could do with those eyes, offering me vulnerability and grief was not one I’d been prepared for.

I dropped to my own knees, not trusting myself to be able to stand in the face of so much naked emotion. I had the wild urge to kiss those tears away, to gather him close to my chest and just hold him. Adelina or no, I knew the look of someone who had withheld themself, too afraid to openly love, for fear of what such a target could cost.

We both already wore such targets.

Who safer to love than the leader of the enemy’s side?  
I had to stop thinking like that. How could I ever ask my generals to do what I could not? Zane was a fellow monarch, a prince, a future ruler. He had never been my personal enemy and he never would.

I was ending this here.

I pressed my forehead to his, eyes closed against the raw sight of his face and the wild terror of my actions. I pressed our foreheads together and knelt over this tender new seedling of peace, determined to see it through.

“Alright,” I said. “I promise. We’ll find a way.”


	7. In which Danica is a Queen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Basically part 2 of the last chapter, but I needed to break them up for my own sanity. Also, it's coming together! I have plot now! Or at least, means to achieve the plot that was already there :P

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Am I mad? Probably? Do I LOVE what I'm doing here? Absolutely. Are these chapter notes necessary? Not at all! But this is my indulgence so here they are anyways :P

Kneeling before Zane and promising to find a way was one thing. Getting back up off the floor and actually doing it was quite another.

So we compromised, staying on the floor but moving the lean up against the bed. It was surprisingly easier to talk to him this way; yes, we were touching, a bit of leg here, shoulder there, but I didn’t have to look at him, and that made all the difference. I suddenly realized that part of what made talking to Andreios in those late nights was that I put my back to him. Leaning into the solid warmth of his chest and talking into the dark made confessing my heart so much easier.

I don’t think it was my heart I was confessing to Zane, but it was still made easier by facing a neutral tapestry covered wall instead of my would-be king.

Shouldn’t that be a sign that this was a bad idea? That I could only talk to him if I didn’t look at him.

But then, he hadn’t tried to meet my eyes either. Maybe we just weren’t that sort of couple.

Couple. The thought took my breath away, and I struggled to release it, to keep from that trembling tension that I knew Zane would misconstrue.

“I’m alright,” I breathed before he could ask. “Just... adjusting. Overthinking.”

“Your thoughts might do us more good out here in the open.”

A surprised hiccup of laughter escaped me. “I don’t think telling you that the thought of us being a couple makes my limbs seize up with fear is helpful.”

“On the contrary.” Zane’s voice was soft enough it made me want to look at him, to see the kind of expression that went with that face. But I kept my eyes on the tapestry, wandering its warp and weft without seeing more than the colors.

“I think it’s extremely productive to talk about exactly how we feel with one another. My people will have a hard enough time embracing an avian queen. One that hides behind her haughty mask of reserve will never be tolerated.”

“And mine won’t like you no matter what face you show them.”

“Do you dance, Danica?”

The question caught me so off guard that I did turn to look at him then, staring in incredulity.

He gestured to the tapestry I’d been staring at without seeing.

It’s threads wove the tale of the first hawk, the golden queen Alasdair. The center was a radiant riot of gold, the hawk queen framed in triumphant flight against the sun. But the borders showed more subdued scenes, of brown and dying earth, of an infant in a feathered nest, of a young woman dancing among the clouds and then the fields, grown green at her feet’s touch.

“It’s just a metaphor,” I murmured. “Avian magic comes through song, not dance. But how do you weave a song?”

My gaze lingered on a corner piece, the queen Alasdair raised in supplication, stretched out long from the tips of her toes to her delicately embroidered fingers, raised high overhead with her wrists crossed. The details double-stitched over the base weaving made her pop, standing out in radiant golden threads on the more humbly woven green.

I was focusing on nonsense details again, remembering the technical skills that went into this piece rather than thinking about its deeper meaning.

“I just wondered,” Zane said casually, though this moment was anything but. “She’s woven against a backdrop of the Ahnleh, which is the sign of the dancers’ nests among my people.”

I tried to pick out the sign he’d indicated, but all I saw was the seal of Alasdair, a glyph as common to my eye as any. All coins, contracts, and sigils of protection bore some incarnation of that mark, a single line stretched from heaven to earth, with delicate branching wings meeting in the middle. It was mostly obscured by Alasdair herself on this work, but I knew it well.

“I’m sure there are differences we just can’t see because she’s in the way,” I said, not really knowing what else to say. Was he just trying to distract me, til I calmed down and could speak more rationally?

“I’m sure there are similarities, too.” His voice had gone all tender and soft again, and I couldn’t resist turning to look at him. “Enough so that I recognized it.”

Our faces were unspeakably close, a breath way from touching. I knew that wasn’t objectively true, but... I’d never let my face linger so close to a man’s before. The thought of that beautifully cruel mouth so close to mine...

“I never kissed anyone before.”

The words came out on a breath unbidden, my mind tumbling from lips too preoccupied to hold anything back. They wanted nothing more than to press themselves against the hard softness of Zane’s, to see if those lips so clever and cruel could also be gentle and tender.

But Zane had jerked back at my soft declaration, utterly shocked.

“You’re joking.”

The heat of desire flared into outrage. I felt my eyes harden and my lips thin out in a narrow, tightly pressed line.

“Why would I joke about something like that?” My words were cold, measured, precise. “Why would I admit to such a weakness in a moment of vulnerability where we are trying to be truthful with one another? You said anything to make this work, yet you’re mocking me for keeping chaste? It’s the way of my people, Zane. We don’t sneak into each other’s bedrooms in the middle of the night--“

My words caught on the jumble of anger, and the memory of Elanor sneaking him into my room so he could propose to me while I was not even awake to receive it.

”--and propose mad fancies as if that will solve anything! There is no easy way out of this, Zane Cobriana. We either have to work together, or make enmity anew with this pointless conversation!”

I’d crossed my arms over my middle, holding my own ribs in that way of my most intimate of comforts. It was what I did when Rei was not there to hold so. I did it now to keep from flailing about, letting my hands speak the aggression my tone would not. I would not scream at him. I would not escalate.

I would not be the reason the guards poured into the room and broke us apart.

But I would also not sit here and be insulted.

He was quiet for far too long, face turned away, hiding from me as surely as he accused me of doing with my ‘haughty avian reserve’. How dare he? How dare he! He was such a hypocrite, coming to me with this mad scheme, making grand gestures and pretty speeches and never once suggesting how this mad thing might be done.

I was so caught up stewing in my own fury that I almost missed his softly spoken answer.

“I never said proposing marriage would be easy.”

“But you never said anything more about how such a thing would be done, either, did you Zane?”

It was all I could do to keep my voice quiet, to contain my outrage in harshly whispered tones.

“You just dumped this problem in my lap as if I’d have any more luck solving it than you did. What am I supposed to do with this, Zane? If I say no, your feelings are hurt and we’re still without a solution. But if I say yes, we still haven’t really solved anything, have we? We’ve just made a complicated scenario more messy and entangled and vulnerable--“

The rest of my words were cut off by his face suddenly in mine. I jerked back so quickly, I didn’t immediately process that he’d been attempting to kiss me.

Fury burned, hot on my cheeks and in my eyes, and in my fiercely whispered words.

“How dare you. How dare you! You think this can all be solved with an uninvited kiss?”

“I thought that’s what you wanted!”

He cut off my tirade with an equally fierce whisper, eyes dark with hurt and frustration. “Why else would you have brought it up, if not in invitation? I don’t know how you do things in the Keep, Danica, but I am trying my best. I know you expect me to pursue you, to be the active party, so that your avian virtue remains intact, but what am I supposed to do when that isn’t the right answer either?”

I just stared. He’d caught me so completely off guard, I had no idea what to do with him. My shock kept me from monitoring my words, kept me from doing anything but pour out the honest truth of my whirling thoughts.

“You know--you know, do you? Well tell me, Zane, how am I supposed to act according to your serpiente morals? Because while you think you know everything there is to know about avian pairbonds, I don’t know a thing about serpiente--” I paused, groping for a word I didn’t have. “Skies above, Zane, I don’t even know what your people call it! You don’t have pairbonds, do you even marry?”

“Would I have asked you to marry me if we didn’t have such traditions?”

“I don't know!” I hated the emotion that crept into my voice. “I don’t know anything about what I’m getting myself into. I don't know the first thing about your people or your expectation and you’re asking me to marry you. Don’t you understand how absurd it is?”

“Yes!” He met my fire with his own, both of us growing ever louder. “Gods, yes, I do, but I’m really out of ideas. I thought spending time with your people would help me understand them better, but I really have no idea--“

“What do you mean, spending time with my people?”

Zane looked away, eyes fixed on the floor. He was quiet long enough I almost thought I’d have to ask again, but he finally admitted, “This isn’t my first time visiting Elanor’s aunts.” 

Again, I just stared at him. What on earth could I possibly say to that revelation?

But he carried on, eyes drifting up to the tapestry, as if searching it for inspiration. Or apparently, memory.

“I knew this tapestry because I spent a full night and a day staring at it, as I fought to work through a delirious fever brought on by that damnable falcon poison. Adelina brought me here, to the first shelter she’d found, and demanded a place to keep me safe while I healed. All I can say was that it must have been the will of Fate to bring me here, to a house sympathetic to true peace, with a wound minor enough that the am’haj didn’t just kill me outright.”

I thought of Elanor’s retelling of his dramatic ride, of declaring it the will of Fate that he find her--and had to wonder if my dearest friend had lied to me. But Zane continued, sweeping me away with his dramatic story.

“I stared at this tapestry and tried to keep my grip on reality as she sang to me of peace, a hallucinations to be sure. But when I heard of what you did for Gregory, I couldn’t help but remember that fevered dream, and hope...”

“Hope for what?”

“Hope that maybe it was a sign. That maybe things really could get better. That maybe hawks could dance with cobras, and peace could rise from bloody fields.”

“Alright,” I said again, with less conviction than before, but more of an idea of how to proceed.

“Alright?” Zane echoed with a raised eyebrow. I nodded.

“I’ll sing you back to health. We send messengers to both palaces that you were injured on your return journey from the Mistari lands, and I’m attending your bedside to give you what healing aide I have. It will give us time to brainstorm, and maybe come up with a less ludicrous idea than a marriage neither of us actually want.”

Zane just stared. I shrugged.

“It’s the best idea I have. It buys us time. I just... I just need some time. To do what, I don’t know yet. But I didn’t have this plan until just now, so maybe, with a few more days...”

“And what’s to stop the Keep from scouring the fields to find me and finish me off?”

“My word,” I said firmly. “I’ve commanded the generals twice to stand down, and if they cannot obey me in this I’ll... I’ll,” I shook my head, trying to shake off some of the fury that had been building over the past several days. “I’ll discharge each and every one of them. I’ll discharge the entire army if I have to. I am done fighting. This ends here.”

“Or they overthrow you,” Zane said with a dry wryness that was anything but humorous.

“They can try,” I said through gritted teeth. “Shardae magic holds the key to the hidden fields on the far side of the mountain. If they want a civil war, we’ll see how long it lasts when their soldiers are starving.”

Zane gave me wide eyes, but they were marked with approval. “Wisely put, my most bloodthirsty queen.”

“I’m not--” But I cut off as I realized he was teasing me. I wasn’t used to people laughing at me. I was going to have to learn how to turn it into Zane laughing with me, as it was clear that was how he intended it. I was too accustomed to taking myself seriously. Even if it seemed no one else did.

I realized with a bit of a start that I liked Zane laughing at me--with me. I liked that it felt like he was honestly trying to engage me, not just manage me. I liked the thought that he, of all people, might actually see me. The thought brought color to my cheeks, and again, I felt the urge to get up and move.

Which was why I made myself stay put, and even found the courage to lean back against Zane, to close the distance our fight had put between us.

“I need an ally in this,” I said madly, hopefully, absurdly. “I don’t think I need a husband, but...”

I let myself lay my head over against his shoulder, to show my serpiente counterpart that I was willing to try. Maybe not something as absurd as becoming lover, but at least co-conspirators. Maybe friends.

“I certainly need an ally.”


	8. In Which there was Only One Bed (and it wasn't as fun as it should have been)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danica spends more time thinking because she is my POV character and I am exploring all the tweaks I have made to this setting because I can't even do a fanfic without adding colored sand to the sandbox -.-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought I was ready for a timejump, but no. we are going to visit every agonizing little detail of this night, apparently. Also, I named the unnamed guards, because why not. Vasili's cousin is now Raymond, and Schrodinger's falcon is Emune (because the original book Aerith and Bob'd so hard, I thought I'd keep with tradition)

Elanor was sent off with the Cobriana ring--Sisal’s ring, my ring--and a letter written in my hand to take back to the Keep. I insisted a guard go with her and Raymond, Vasili’s cousin, volunteered. I agreed with the choice that the less even tempered Emune stay with us. He’d done nothing untrustworthy, but the way he watched Adelina made me want to keep him close. I trusted Raymond to see Elanor back to the Keep safely, and to ensure my words were delivered to Andreios’s hands.

Why Andreios, and not my mother? Because I didn’t trust her anymore.

I loved my mother, I truly did. And I believe everything she did that felt so stifling to me was out of love as well, and overprotectiveness. She had told me it was time for me to become Queen. Well, a queen didn’t ask for her mother’s permission. She let the captain of her guard oversee her safety, and had her staff carry out her orders. My mother wasn’t needed in this decision.

And, I wanted to see what she and my generals would do.

I needed to know if I could trust those who had led in war to follow me into peace. This week at the Lyssia farm would show me much, and Zane and I could adjust our plans accordingly.

Zane and I. Our plans. It still seemed so ludicrous. But the cobra stayed by my side, making small sounds here and there as I drafted my letter, making suggestions rather than corrections, which I greatly appreciated. This was the hardest letter I’d ever drafted in my life. Having help was very welcome.

I gave Andreios specific orders on who and how many he could bring, knowing that he would come himself--and hoping he remembered our old signal of the vase of roses I’d carefully moved to the trunk of my bed before fleeing--and that there was no way the heir to the Tuuli Thea would be allowed to spend a week in the outer territory unguarded.

Especially once he got to the part about me doing so with Zane Cobriana.

I couldn’t help but remember the look of betrayal on his face when I’d thrown myself between him and Zane. I wondered if I’d have to do it again.

This week would tell me so many things.

As we exited the Lyssia bedroom, surrendering it to its proper owners, the ladies of the house made some fuss about letting us keep it. Zane and I both demurred, him with considerably more cool than myself, me knowing it wouldn’t be long until Andreios arrived. I’d have a long night of arguing with him on my hands, I knew. Unless I was willing to play the absolute monarch like my mother did. I tried not to do that with Rei. I didn’t have enough friends to risk the ones I did.

I realized with a start that I’d mentally put Zane on that very short list. Not a good friend, by any means, but... Well, I’d asked for an ally, and he seemed to be doing his best to do just that. I’d spent so long being told my place, having to push and claw for every liberty and point that I’d started thinking of anyone on my side as a friend. Zane was a fellow monarch, an equal. I didn’t know him well enough yet to be friends.

But surprisingly, I wanted to. Every interaction I’d had with him, Zane had opened up. Alarmingly quickly, by avian standards. He was so ready to talk about his pain, his losses, his vulnerabilities, his dreams. Maybe I was projecting, but he seemed as hungry for a friend as I was.

Maybe friendship was enough.

I felt my cheeks heat at the foolishness of the thought, especially as I looked up and realized I’d lose track of Zane. Emune hadn’t, and I’d simply trusted my guard to have my back. That was beyond foolish; the serpiente could move so frighteningly quick--

No, I stopped myself. It wasn’t foolish.  
It was trust.

I turned to offer Zane a tentative smile, to show him this small blossom of trust--

and found him with Adelina.

They weren’t touching--they weren’t even being that civil with each other, I noticed--but their movements spoke of bodies well familiar with one another, moving seamlessly to set up their bedrolls by the fire as they quietly bickered.

That is not a man unfamiliar with your body.

My flush deepened, and I’d have given anything for the guard at my back to be Andreios instead of Emune. What must he think of all this, his mad future queen and these bickering serpents.

What would the rest of the court think of me.

It shouldn’t matter. It didn’t matter, not really. But... it did. It didn’t matter to me, personally, but it would affect my ability to lead. The Shardaes were well loved, for their patronage of the arts and their generosity with all their had--and their gifts of song. That, more than anything else I knew, was what kept us in the hearts of the people. That lingering kiss of magic that cast the mind back to our mythical hawk queen--one who danced, Zane said, over a serpiente symbol.

My head was beginning to hurt.

I turned my back to the arguing couple--and they were most certainly a couple--by the fire and addressed Emune.

“I assume you’ll want to keep a watch rather than sleep?”

He nodded, his habit to remain more or less mute, I supposed. I bit back a sigh.

“I figured as much. Then I shall nap in the rocker, until Rei--Captain Andreios comes.”

I knew better, I really did. But what I wanted was Rei, not Captain Andreios. I wanted to talk to my best friend, to unravel the tangle of my thoughts in the retelling of them, and maybe, I added guiltily, spend a few minutes in his arms. Just for the comfort of it but--well, Zane was in his favorite pair of arms. Why shouldn’t I retreat to mine?

Because he wants to take you as his...mate. I realized I still didn’t know the word. If it had been just me and Zane, I might have asked him. But I wouldn’t interrupt he and Adelina for the world.

“That can’t be comfortable.”

Zane’s words cut through my thoughts, startling me in my rocker. I blinked owlish eyes at him, head absolutely scattered.

I realized, belatedly, that I was looking at him alone. Adelina wasn’t in his bedroll. She was perked grumpily on the raised edge of the hearth, back to the fire and her Arami, eyes locked on Emune. Her gazed flicked to me and Zane as we spoke, but she never uncrossed her arms, or moved from her tightly coiled lounge against the stone. She looked just like Zane had in the camps, I realized. Was it from physical familiarity, or a mark of some serpiente style they both trained in?

“I said,” Zane said again, tearing my thoughts from Adelina and all that violent potential, “That can’t be comfortable. If you’re tired, Danica, come lay down.”

My eyes darted around the room, to Emune, to Adelina, to the door I just knew Rei would come through the moment I laid down--if I lay down. Not a chance.

Zane laughed, and it sounded bitter, and tired. Had I spoken that last out loud?

“To public for you to relax, pretty Danica?”

I gave him narrowed eyes. “Why do you always do that?”

“Do what?”

“Say my name like that, like its some kind of title. And like I won’t know which Danica you mean, if you don’t include ‘pretty’ or ‘beautiful’. Is there some other Danica I should be aware of?”

To my utter shock, it was Adelina who laughed. Zane shot her a dirty look, and Emune almost jumped out of his skin, but I just stared, enchanted by the startling sound, as cold and hard as the rest of her.

“She has you there, my Arami. She may be a better match for you than I thought, if she sees through you this easily.”

I blushed and looked at my lap, unable to think of anything to say. Besides, she wasn’t technically addressing me.

Of course, then she did.

“Lay down with him, brave Danica. I won’t bite, and I won’t let him bite you either.”

I felt my eyes bug from my head. I felt more than saw Emune react, and I halted him with a raised hand. Drawing my composure around me like the armor it was, I raised my eyes to Adelina.

“I understand you are very familiar with your Arami.”

Zane snorted, but Adelina watched me with utterly unreadable eyes. I understood the measure she was taking of me, and did my best to live up to it.

“But I am not your Arami, or whatever the equivalent title would be, and I do not know you. I ask that you kindly refrain from teasing me until we are both comfortable with it.”

Adelina arched a perfect, pale eyebrow. “Ask?”

I nodded, chin held high. “Yes, ask. You are not of my court; it is not my place to rule you. But I thought I’d do you the courtesey of asking directly, rather than dragging your Arami into it. I assumed you’d prefer to speak directly, since you felt so comfortable doing so a moment before.”

Her lips thinned, and I couldn’t tell if it was in displeasure or to suppress a smile. But she inclined her head right back and settled back against the stones.

“Very well, Lady Shardae. I will refrain from being so familiar with you, until we’re all comfortable with one another.”

I didn’t care for that parting shot at all. There was mockery in it, and implications I didn’t quite know how to untangle. I knew I was being made fun of, challenged, but so indirectly that I didn’t know how to counter it. But Adelina didn’t seem to expect any response, closing her eyes and resting her head back against the warm hearthstones.

I didn’t look at either of the men, instead choosing to mirror Adelina’s repose. I’d both passed and failed this first test, of that I was sure. But I didn’t know how to make use of my new allyship with Zane to figure it out while we were all waiting so tensely for the Royal Flight to come.

Oh feathered furies.

That’s what they’d been arguing about.

Adelina, Zane’s only guard, had surely been unhappy at the idea of being outnumbered three to one--because I had been adamant in my letter that no more than four guards be on the grounds at any given time. I knew I couldn’t keep Rei from bringing scouts, and this was avian territory after all, but I could and would limit how crowded this small farmhouse would get, and I’d thought four was a reasonable compromise. That’s how many usually walked with me in the fields, and this was simply the fields.

But Adelina had no reinforcements coming.

And her King--her beloved prince and personal lover--had told her to shut up and sleep on it. Or whatever words he’d actually used. I’d assumed a lovers’ spat because that was how I saw her first, the obvious lover I was going to supplant, and least publicly. Zane had all but said he’d keep lovers, and--oh skies above, this was all so stupid. We could never be lovers. I could daydream about what it might be like to kiss those lips, or let myself lay down beside him and that tempting fireplace. But Adelina knew the real thing, and there was no way I could ask her to give him up just to save a little face. For all I knew, the serpents wouldn’t care one way or another.

And as I’d said to Zane, they wouldn’t like him one way or another. A mistress on the side was the least of Zane’s villainies, in the court’s eyes.

But again, there were those vows to be upheld. Oaths really did bind the strength of the Tuuli Thea to the service of her people, and every oath sworn to or by her helped strengthen her magic. We were all hoping my powers would grow when I took the throne--part of why my mother had decided to step down. Her own gifts lay more in veils and illusions, in tricking the mind to be at peace, and not notice the thing she didn’t want noticed. Mine lay in comfort, and the mending of small wounds and illnesses. I had hoped against hope when I held Gregory that my gifts could give him enough life for his own magic to do the rest. But Cobriana magic, it seems, did not line in healing. Or at least, that prince’s hadn’t.

I wondered what powers Zane had, and if they had any use outside of battle.

And maybe he had none, I reminded myself. Just because the falcon monarchs had magic and the avian monarchs had magic, and the tales of Cobriana on the battlefield seemed like magic, didn’t mean it followed that Zane had any gifts. Goddess, my own younger brother Xander could only sing away the noticing of pain, and conceal tropes that did not move. Only if they stood perfectly still, and numbered less than a score, could Xander keep his people from sight. It had been hoped his gifts would grow on the battlefield--

Instead they were lost, he was lost, wasted. Just so much spilt blood.

I must have fallen asleep without realizing it, my thoughts of blood turning to dreams of blood. Because I woke with a strangled cry of “Zane no!” as Andreios shook me awake.


	9. Further Farmhouse Discussions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which I add some cast, take away some cast, and generally just let a room full of people talk WHERE DID THE PLOT GO?????

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is this even anything anymore? I've written so much content today, and feel like I've gotten NOWHERE. JUST LEAVE THIS DAMNED FARMHOUSE WILL YOU????

Surprisingly, I was the only one who wasn’t calm as Rei shook me from my nightmares. Rei had already had his confrontation with Zane, Adelina, Emune--who was the only one who could really get a proper dressing down, as someone under his command, but was also the only one Rei wasn’t really mad at, as he’d done his duty and stayed with his charge--and Elanor, who had returned with Rei, Raymond, and two other guards--Erica and Karshan. I wasn’t sure which surprised me more, that neither were on my approved list, or that they were about as far away in rank as two soldiers could get.

Karshan had come because she’d happened to be in discussion with Rei when Elanor arrived. And Erica had come because she was the solider Karshan and Rei had been discussing.

Erica had requested to join the Royal Flight over a year ago, but had been turned down strictly because she did not have the required time in the general flights. She’d risen swiftly up the ranks, fighting with such impressive skill that even I had taken noticed--once someone had pointed her out to me. Then she’d been simple “the new sparrow”, growing quickly into “the mad sparrow”, because she fought like Zane Cobriana himself was on her tail. Not who I would have picked for a peacekeeping mission.

But Rei had been in such a hurry to get to my side, and Karshan had been intrigued and interested by the contents of the letter. And Erica? Erica was handy, and good. And as long as she was paired with a more level head like Andreios or Raymond... Well, it would probably be fine.

I sat on one of the benches around the farm table, shoulder to shoulder with Elanor and one of her aunts, also an Elanor. I assumed this was the aunt she was related to, though honestly both women looked similar enough that it was hard to be sure. Sun and work and time had weathered them down into hard brown nuts, smiles and frowns alike carved into their skins like grooves in a shell. I wrapped my hands gratefully around the cup of tea I’d been handed, and relaxed into the press of so many feathered bodies beside me.

“I’m so sorry to have woken you,” I whispered again, as Rei and Adelina continued to argue about who would be staying where. Rei wanted me in a box of steel and flesh. Adelina was fine with that box, so long as it was far, far away from her king. Her king, who was still lying in front of the fire, propped up one elbow and watching the scene with a sardonic ease, as false as his “illness”.

“It’s no trouble, my lady,” the elder Elanor assured me. “Calla and I weren’t sleeping anyways.”

I grimaced. “Too nervous of the serpiente?”

The older hen beamed. “Oh no, too excited! It’s not every day we get to host two royals.”

I gave a noncommittal hum, not happy with the reminder that Elanor--the elder, at least--had met with Zane before.

Elanor had flown him up to my room, I was sure of that now. I had heard her voice in my dreams, and how else would he have gotten up there? The Keep was defensible for exactly that reason, accessible only by wing. If there was a way for a serpiente to gain access other than by assistance... I hummed again in my dark thoughts, sipping my tea and trying not to frown. We were trying to be at peace. But that didn’t make me sit any more comfortably between these potential traitors.

We don’t see this war the way the soldiers do...

I watched both Elanor’s from the corners of my eyes, placidly drinking tea and picking over roving for debris before carding. I wondered if Zane would be helping, if he’d joined us at the table. Erica had, from her side of the table, for something to do. She’d put herself between me and Zane straight away, not turned to face him glaring but turned to the table, diligently working. Raymond was by her side, with Karashan on the other, all of them working to clean fleece and make something productive of this late hour.

All of them but me, who sat brooding, and Rei and Adelina, who stood bickering.

And Emune, who stood aloof from it all, watching us all. He was the only guard who seemed to be actually on guard. He caught me watching him and my gaze darted automatically back to my teacup.

“They’re awfully noisy, aren’t they?” Karashan mused, holding up a burr for idle inspection before tossing it in the waste basket. Elanor snorted. Erica bristled.

“They’re both just trying to do their jobs,” the sparrow sniped. “An impossible job, if I might add.”

“No one asked you too,” Karshan said, “but I don’t disagree with you. It’s not much you ask of us, isn’t it, my lady Shardae?”

I colored under the direct attention, wishing I was on the floor with Zane, out of everyone’e line of sight. That thought did not help the blush on my cheeks. Karashan laughed.

“Your mother used to look like that, back when Rinnman would shut her down. It wasn’t easy for Lady Nacola to learn to hold her tongue. Took her even longer to learn to bring her concerns directly to me.”

I blinked at her, then remembered than Rinnman had been Captain of my mother’s Royal Flight, when she’d married its former leader, the man who would become my father.

No wonder everyone expected me to marry Rei.

Myself included.

“Did they fight like this?” I asked, suddenly emboldened. If my commanding mother was once as untried and easy to fluster as me, maybe there was hope for me yet.

“Oh often. Your mother would fight with anyone she could get to yell back--which was not many, mind you. We’re not supposed to argue with our queen.”

I snorted, earning a startled jump from Erica. I don’t think she’d learned yet that any of the Shardae could make such an inelegant sound.

“I suppose it’s because I’m only her heir that has so many of those feather brains arguing with me?”

Again Karshan laughed. “Well, that and you don’t have a head at all for war. ‘The Arami lies ill and I’m going to tend to him’?”

I frowned into my cup. “He is...”

“Sick of being left out,” Zane said, sitting up. Rei and Adeline stopped their bickering immediately, the viper putting herself closer to Zane’s side. “If we all know this is a rouse, can I sit up? You’re making too much noise for me to sleep and this floor isn’t exactly soft.”

“I told you you could take the bed, your Majesty,” Calla reminded him. Zane waved her off, the motion making all the avians flinch. No, all the guards. Enough of this.

“Rei, stand down. You didn’t bring from the list I suggested, so now you’re choices are out of your hands. Take Erica and Emune and fly a perimeter. See--” I choked, realizing the real horror of what I was about to ask. But I asked it anyways. “See if any of the surrounding houses are empty. It’s time we stop imposing on the Ladies Lyssia.”

Rei opened his mouth to argue, but Karashan had my back.

“An execellet idea, Shardae. I agree these peace talks should continue, but I’d really prefer somewhere we can sleep without a cobra and viper at our backs--no offense to said cobra and viper.”  
“None taken,” Zane said companionably.

“The feeling is mutual,” Adelina said with much more venom, but not as much as I knew she had in her. Figuratively that is. Literally... well, best not to dwell.

Outranked and outnumbered, Rei did as I bid, taking most of the problems with him. Adelina didn’t relax, exactly, but she seemed much less tense. As did Karashan, though I hadn’t realized her tension until she’d released it. Spending the evening with demonstrative serpiente had spoiled me.

“Now,” Karashan said, taking on the tone she used in a meeting of the generals’ council, “what needs to be discussed while the least tolerant are out stretching their wings.”

I blinked at her forthrightness--but then, that was Karashan. She always delivered reports exactly as they were, no embellishments, no agendas tacked on. This is what we have, this is the situation.

My mother had come to Karashan with her problems, bypassing the generals’ council.

Should I?

Did I really have any choice?

“How likely is this house to be swarmed with avian soldiers?” Adelina asked, cutting right to the point. It was a good question, though I was shocked by her blatant asking of it.

“Not very,” Karashan answer, and Raymond--and Elanor and Calla nodded.

“We don’t see many patrols,” the elder Elanor said.

“And I had to lead everyone back here when we returned,” Elanor the younger added.

“But if there is somewhere more neutral you can suggest,” Raymond put in, surprising me. I couldn’t help but wonder how this would have gone if it were his cousin sitting here, helping me forge a peace for our soon to be announced reign.

“No,” I said thought a voice too thick with memory. I swallowed and said with more authority, “I want to see how the Keep reacts, my mother and generals alike. I want them to know I’m out here, with Zane, working towards to peace.” I want to see if they’ll listen, I thought to myself, and caught Karashan nodding.

Adelina made a rude sound, but Zane cut her off.

“That’s all well and good, but you can understand why my captain of the guard doesn’t like it.”

“You shouldn’t like it either,” she muttered, but it was clear she didn’t argue with her Arami. I wondered what their daily life was like that it was so. Rei would have just scooped me up and flown me away to a safer location if I’d argued with him about such a situation as this.

“So is there a more neutral place?” Raymond asked again, and I was beginning to feel he was driving at something.

“Do you have a suggestion?” Karashan asked, clearly getting the same impression I was.

“There’s this old ruin,” Raymond suggested, and I felt Elanor perk up beside me.

“The Camp?” she asked, and it was clear from the way she said it it was The Camp, all capital letters.

“What’s The Camp?” I asked, when no one else did.

“An old ruin,” Karashan said, as Raymond had started. “And I do mean ruin. Nothing grows there, the water is sickly with some ancient poison--“

“But it’s a neutral territory,” Raymond put in, and Elanor nodded.

“It’s where a lot of meet for trade,” she said.

“And trysts,” her aunt added, squeezing Calla’s hand. I flushed.

“It’s of little strategic value,” Adelina added, finally chiming in. “I didn’t know any of our people even went out that far. It’s almost in wolf country.”

“Would it soothe your concerns?” Zane asked her.

“As long as we’re allowed a soldier--guard,” she corrected herself, “for everyone one of theirs, I don’t care where you woo your hawk.”

Karashan’s head spun around. “Excuse me.”

Oh. Right. 

I’d never gotten around to talking to the generals’ council about how the peace talks went, because I’d been too busy trying to wrangle an acceptable answer as to why they’d broken the standing orders not to engage. And apparently no one who had gone with us had wanted to spoil my dignity with the tale.

Well.

I reached out, startling Karashan with the informal touch.

“Ease down, General. One of the many possibilities for ending this war is simply joining the two nations. We can’t fight each other if we’re one people.”

Karashan stared at me as if I’d grown a second head. No, a third head. Finally, she pulled herself together and said,

“Pretty to think so, Shardae, but plenty of wars are fought among a single people. Just look at the trouble you’re having with your generals.”

I sighed, feeling that old familiar headache return.

“I know that-- no, I really do,” I added at the look the hardened soldier gave me. “But we have to try something. And we left the Mistari before we could properly make use of their mediation.” And a good thing too, I thought with an inward shiver, remembering the near bloodshed in the hallway. “So, Zane and I are going to do our best to talk it out, under the cover of this ruse about an injury. It’s a good test,” I insisted, trying to talk myself into it as much as anyone else. “It will reveal many attitudes, on many sides.”

“And it will reveal your partner’s dedication to the cause,” Karashan added with a pointed look at Zane. Zane just shrugged, and Adeline made a disgusted noise and went for the kettle to make herself some tea.

It was a good sign, I thought, that she was willing to turn her back on her Arami in this kitchen full of feathers.


	10. In which we FINALLY leave the farmhouse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The band sets out to find neutral territory, and Danica starts to open her eyes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm mad. I'm absolutely mad. THIS IS NO LONGER HAWKSONG AT ALL WHAT AM I DOING WHERE IS THIS GOING? (it's going towards smooches that's where its going)

The ruins were exactly as advertised. Ancient remains of stone and tile work sat in overgrown disarray, the only thing holding parts of it together were the living roots clinging to the ancient bones. It felt haunted, in a way that battlefield did not. The fields were about death, and nothing more. This was once a place of life, and it’s current lack was only underscored by the verdant growth that had moved in to take the old inhabitants’ place.

“I thought you said nothing grew here,” I muttered to Karashan to cover my unease.

The general shrugged. “Nothing arable.”

Raymond snorted and began scouting around sorting through foliage in one way or another, following some reason I couldn’t decern. I decided to follow him, at a loss for what else to do. And it kept Rei from hovering, as I had a guard. I had a feeling I was going to spending a lot of time with Raymond and Karashan. I was absolutely avoiding my would-be pairbond. I did not want to have this conversation.

“What are you looking for?”

“Forest fruits,” Raymond answered absently, elbow deep in a tangle of briars. “Just because a land can’t be farmed doesn’t mean it can’t provide.”

I watched with genuine interest, helping carry his harvest and trying to remember his points as he spoke. He pulled berries out of thickets, apples off of branches I’d have passed over, and marked the passage of game animals. Raymond made a good teacher; I remembered it was trait he shared with his cousin. It was bittersweet, working with him, but I did my best to focus on the sweet. It wasn’t too hard; the work was interesting and fulfilling. I’d only seen our farmland from above, never walked down among the rows, let alone helped in the harvesting. These weren’t the tidy rows of our grain fields, but it was still closer than I’d ever been to my own food.

“And the water?” I asked, as we returned to the central clearing and its ominous covered well.

“Unpredictable,” he said shortly. “I think something happens further upstream and contaminates it.”

I blinked. “So its not a proper well, then, dug straight down?”

He shook his head, gesturing back behind us towards the mountains and Hawk’s Keep.

“Everything runs down from the mountain. Sooner or later, what happens up there trickles down to everyone else.”

I frowned at his word choice, knowing he was talking about more than just the water.

Raymond was unlike any of the other soldiers I’d ever met. All the Flight was friendly with me--we all spent too much of our time together for us not to be--but only Rei crossed that line into true familiarity. Raymond, I guessed, had probably known me as a child, or at least of me. I wished I could remember more of Vasili’s family. They’d almost all been soldiers, I thought, or maybe just the one’s I’d know had been soldiers. Maybe he had family out in the fields like Elanor did.

I was about to ask him when Andreios alighted before us, jarred the switch from raven to man. It could be an elegant and leisurely process. But Rei had switched back almost before he’d properly landed.

“They’re coming.”

His tone was so sour there was no doubt who he meant. And sure enough, Zane and Adelina crested a small ridge, Zane waving merrilly as he caught sight of us.

He’s so odd, I thought, watching him flow down from the rise. Everyone around him is singing with tension, and he’s waving like we’re old friends. I wondered if that was just his nature, happy and enthusiastic, or if he was doing it to piss off Rei. Or maybe Adelina. Or maybe it was all three, or something I hadn’t considered at all. He was a mystery to me, but a puzzle I was keen to suss out. I liked this kind of wondering and second guessing. It was like a game of chess. I had a feeling Zane would be good at chess, and the gambling games of cards and coins that passed the soldiers’ time in the barracks. Anything that called for a strategy, and the ability to think on the fly, and play to your opponent’s expectations.

Like war.

I tried not to frown at him as he approached, but that last thought had soured my mood. I wondered who’d be to each other if we’d grown up only neighboring monarchs. Perhaps we’d have been promised to each other as children, a way to solidify good relations between our peoples. It was such an absurd thought it almost made me laugh. At least it helped me smile when Zane and Adelina were near enough to see it. I was glad to see my flights of fancy could be good for something.

“Well, it seems we’ve both had good hunting,” Zane said cheerily as he took in our “harvest”. He behaved for all the world like he was out on a picnic, completely ignoring Erica, Emune, and Karashan fanning out behind him and Adelina.

“And what were you hunting?” I asked, adopting his same casual tone. If it worked for him, it worked for me. I was accustomed to ignoring my Flight when they were working, and being falsely light and at ease was closer than second nature.

“Shelter. There’s something like an old rsh, ah, meeting place,” he ammended almost flawlessly, “just over that rise.”

“I didn’t see any buildings,” Rei said grumpily. I’d have wondered at his open unhappiness if it weren’t for Zane. It was clear the cobra made him forget every ounce of his reserve or restraint. I was glad of it, in a way. It meant I didn’t have to wonder where my guard captain stood.

“Nor have I,” Karashan added, “On any of our scouting trips. This place is No Man’s Land.”

Raymond made a sound behind me, but Zane openly scoffed.

“I didn’t say we’d found a building, I said we found a rsh, a nest. They’re always built into the trees--” His words cut off, and it didn’t take much insight to guess that he’d been about to comment on how they’re not meant to be noticable from above. Diplomatically, he continued, “It would take a serpiente to find one. Even from the ground, they’re well hidden if you don’t know what you’re looking for.”

“It’s true, my lady.” Erica had stayed glued to Zane’s side, either eager to prove herself, or eager to stick a knife in his back and beg forgieness later. I’d have worried more, but Karashan had stayed glued to Erica. “I saw the pair of them slip between the trees and it was like they weren’t even there. But the shelter checks out, and it has a place for a fire and provisions.” It was clear from her tone that she’d checked it over with a soldier’s eye, with a minnd for defensibility and praticality. I more selfishly wondered about comfort.

When I’d suggested I spend the week with Zane, I’d been envisioning staying at the Lyssia’s farmhouse, or at the least not out of doors. I don’t know what I’d expected from a place called “the ruins”, but I was not prepared to take an extended camping trip with Zane Cobriana.

Was that petty of me? I’d thought it was rather big of me to suggest spending the week with him at all. Wasn’t it reasonable to expect to spend that week in physical comfort, since it was guarenteed to be about as emotionally uncomfortable as possible?

But I followed them up the rise, into the trees, and was glad we’d set out at first light. It gave us plenty of time to check over the whole place, and hopefully to discover there was no other option but to return to the farm house for a hot meal and a regroup.

Erica was the first to disappear, walking right between two trees and simply vanishing. Emune cried out, but Karashan touched his shoulder and held him back.

Adelina went next, and the pair of them pulled back whatever covering obscured the opening. The space was close and dark, a yawning void between them. I did not care for that symbolism one bit.

But Zane strode forward without any visible concern, and Karashan went in after him, leaving me with the men of my guard.

I looked to Rei, not sure what I was asking him but feeling the pleading in my eyes. I think if Emune and Raymond hadn’t been there, he might have pulled me to him, might have whispered a chastizement, or an endearment, or something. But we had an audience, and Zane had poked his head back out of the dark.

“It’s brighter than it looks from the outside. Come inside, and I’ll show you all the secrets of a rsh.”

His crooked grin was too tempting, infectious in its enthusiasm. He was clearly delighted to have stumbled upon this part of serpiente history, and his eagerness to share it with me was catching. So I simply nodded, taking the hand he offered to help me in over the tangle of roots. I thrilled at the touch of his hand--then stiffened at the touch of his other hand on my waist.

I nearly tripped in my haste to pull away, which, of course, only made him hold on tighter.

“Easy there.”

Before I could form any protest, Erica’s dagger was out--and Adelina’s blade tipped stave. Their reactions immediately shifted mine, from outrage at Zane’s impropriaty to the ever present frustration at everyone’s haste to jump to violence.

“Hold!”

The command in my tone surprised even me, but I didn’t let it show.

“Zane startled me. It cannot come to blows every time one of us flinches or moves too swiftly. This is why we can’t stop the fighting, don’t you see that? Stop being soldiers for two blessed minutes and just be guards. You’re here to protect us from outside threats, not each other.”

“But my lady,” Erica insisted, “If I do not stay at the ready, I will not be fast enough to react to them. Serpiente are just too fast.”

I let her see all the tiredness in my eyes, and the frustration and disappointment and exasperation.

“If he strikes me out here, Erica, then let him strike me. Let him end the Shardae line here and now, and let every sparrow, crow, and raven bow down to their new Diente, or fly away to the island of Ahnmik. Either way, I am done fighting him. Do you understand that, Erica?”

Erica gave me a long, potent look, and I could see all the thoughts swirling behind her eyes. But what she said was,

“I have sworn to give my life’s blood in defense of my queen and her heirs. I cannot stand by and allow harm to come to you. My oaths do not allow it.”

“Then go home!”

I didn’t mean to shout at her, but I just couldn’t stand it anymore.

“If you cannot serve me in peace, then go home. Return to my mother, return to the generals, return to the war that no one can seem to let go of! I am done fighting. I’m done. If I live to take my oaths as Tuuli Thea, I will have no use for soldiers. If Zane kills me now, then I was never meant to wear the crown anyway. Because I cannot look at that man and summon up any bloodlust. I cannot stare into garnet eyes and see anything but a dying little boy, hurt and alone. I can’t seem to find the hatred that keeps you all going. Maybe if I’d been aloud to mourn anyone--“

My voice broken on a sob, every tear I’d never shed rising up all at once to choke me. I turned away, but there was no away in this tight press of people. Half a dozen soldiers, and one of them with my dead alastair’s face--

I spun in the other direction and simply ran.


	11. Holding Too Tight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Rei and Danica finally have a much needed conversation. Sort of.
> 
> In which I promise this is an OT3 just hear me out I AM GOING SOMEWHERE WITH THIS (i just have no idea where send help)

“Dani?”

Rei touched my shoulder, tentative, cautious, and I wanted to turn and scream at him. It was irrational, I knew, but I was tired of being rational. I wanted to sulk and snipe like my guard captain; I wanted to joke and tease like Zane. Even Emune’s stoic, silent hostility was more emotion than I felt allowed to show. I wanted to bury my face in Rei’s chest and scream and sob and shout and beat my fists against him and feel his strong arms around mine and know that they would never let go.

I did not want to be a hole in the ground crying within earshot of Zane Cobriana.

I sat, frozen, unable to offer Rei any sort of response because to move at all would be to fly apart in every direction at once. I was exhausted, on every level, but the demands of me just kept coming.

And now here was Rei, asking without words if everything was alright, and knowing that it wasn’t.

When I didn’t react to his presence, Rei moved closer, kneeling next to me, putting his arm around my shoulder, gentling me to his chest. I let it happen, let him take comfort from the actions of comforting me, hoping that maybe if I went through the motions it would somehow seep in through this solid wall of icy nothingness. I could feel my edges cracking, wanting desperately to shatter. But Rei’s embrace did not offer enough heat for anything so dramatic. No whirlwind collision of fire and ice would ever come of two so steeped in reserve.

I pushed away.

“Dani--“

“Don’t, Rei.”

I tried to gentle my harsh refusal with the softness of his childhood nickname. Dani and Rei. Two untried children who thought they knew what grief was. Oh, if we had only known what torments would be yet to come.

“Is Rei who you want?”

His question startled me, made me scrutinize him in the close dimness, as if I had somehow mistaken the voice I knew so well, the arms that cradled me to sleep when the nightmares left me screaming, the heartbeat as familiar to my ears as my own. I studied his face, trying to read the thoughts behind his eyes, searching for... I didn’t know what.

“What does that mean?” I finally asked, at a loss. At least his enigmatic question had given me something else to fixate on, shaken me from my mire of emotions.

Rei pulled back, and I realized I’d been steadying myself with a hand on his chest, because as he moved away I felt my balance shift, and did not appreciate the metaphor. Yes, Rei was my rock, but he wasn’t leaving me--

Or was he?

I flashed back to his outrage at the Mistari camps, the betrayed confusion in his eyes as I’d flung myself between him and Zane. How obviously unhappy he was with this entire arrangement--and how flagrant he’d been with all these emotional displays, and how utterly unseemly it all was.

We’ll find a way, he’d promised me. And I’d said the exact same words to Zane.

Is Rei who you want.

“Rei...”

I followed him, letting my hand on his chest take more of my weight, letting him feel the shift in my balance, letting him know I would fall without him. It was the only language we had for this thing we dared not voice, the only way I had to show him how much he mattered to me.

Everyone assumed he’d become my alastair, when I was ready. But what confirmation had I given _him_ , the man who would give his life for me a thousand times over? We never spoke of it, because it was unseemly...

When had this gulf grown up between us?

Maybe it was just from watching Zane and Adelina, so obviously a couple without ever doing anything overt, but...

I wanted Rei. And the fact that he could ask me that, that I’d left him any room to doubt--it broke my heart.

I’d preserved my purity so carefully, and for what? Zane didn’t care, and had made that clear. And Rei... Rei had suffered for my chastity.

I brought my other hand up to cup his face, bringing me even further off balance, and searched his stern face for a sign. That he’d stop me, that he wouldn’t... But he didn’t flinch, not even around the eyes. Rei was locked down, hiding from me--me. I felt balanced on the edge of a precipice, knowing that if I didn’t bring him back to me now, he’d be lost to me forever.

Did I love him? Of course, absolutely and without question. Did I love him in the way he loved me?

I just didn’t know.

But I wanted to find out.

I slipped my hand around to cup his neck, feeling his raven’s feathers soft under my fingertips. I pulled him to me, pushed myself higher up on my knees, did everything I could to close the gap--but he had to come to me. I couldn’t make this soldier bend if he was unwilling.

I breathed his name, the bare whisper of it lost in the rush of blood pounding in my ears.

“Rei... Yes. I want this.”

Now he did flinch, and I thought my heart would break into a million pieces.

“Here? You want to do this here?”

I bit back my sigh, tried to keep my voice and breathing even.

“Yes, Rei, here. Why not here? Why not a million times before this? What has kept us from this?”

He couldn’t answer, because there wasn’t an answer. We’d kept ourselves apart for reasons that didn’t exist, not when faced the desperate reality of two people who needed each other. I urged him down again, feeling that I was nearly hanging from his neck, begging him to bend, to not fight this now that I was finally ready--

His lips were startling against mine, too fierce, too sudden. Yes I’d asked him to do this, but I hadn’t expected it to be so, so...

I tried to stop thinking, to just feel his lips against mine, his hair under my hands, his breath hot on my face-- Breathe. I couldn’t breathe. This was supposed to be passionate and fulfilling, and all I wanted was a chance to pull back, to take a breath--

I pulled back, opening my mouth to ask him to wait a moment, to pause. But he followed me, the flood of his need unstoppable now that the gates had opened. His tongue surged between my lips, choking in its insistence--

“Rei! Stop! Give me a moment, please.”

I braced my hands against his chest, feeling his heart as wildly beneath my hands as my own pulse in my throat. My head was spinning and I still couldn’t breathe, and I’d definitely have fallen if not for his hands still around my waist. I gripped his arms at the elbows, needing to hold on, and feeling safe again now that he’d relented. It was a good sign, I hoped, that I still felt safe in his arms, but...

Well. This could hardly be the reception he’d been hoping for.

“Please don’t pull away.”

I gripped his arm and locked my eyes with him, willing him to stay, to keep himself open to me, to not take this as a rejection. The failing was on my part, and I desperately needed him to give me the time to explain that.

My words came out in a tumbled rush, as overwhelming and demanding as his kiss had been.

“Can we try that again? I want you, please understand that I want you, but Rei that was so much, how was I supposed to keep up? We’ve never done anything like that before and suddenly you want to consume me--“

“Dani, Dani stop.”

His hands were light on my waist, completely at odds with the intensity of my grip on his arms. I felt I was falling, falling, and his careful hands were the only thing holding me to earth. I cherished the feel of his hands, so why had I balked at the press of his lips?

“You’re right,” he said carefully, as if worried he would spook me. I felt how wide and wild my eyes were, so I really couldn’t blame him. “You’re right. I should have conducted myself with more decorum. I’ve wanted to do that for so long...”

He closed his eyes and drew in a steading breath, while I wondered at his words. He’d wanted to do that for so long. Had I? Had I honestly ever imagined kissing him, exploring him?

“But you’re right,” he said again. He sounded almost like he was trying to convince himself. “Here and now and a million times over, I could have and should have and would have and will. I will.”

He pulled me in closer, and my breath caught at the sudden sensation of too much closeness again.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said into my hair. I was glad he couldn't’ see my face, because I had no idea how to hide my panic. “You want me, and now I know. The rest... we’ll figure out.”

“Right,” I mimicked, wishing I felt his certainty. “We’ll figure it out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh look, notes!
> 
> Yes, I usually put these at the beginning, but today's notes section is for whinging and doubts so I thought I'd tack it on at the end and not spoil the fic with it.
> 
> So.
> 
> I didn't intend for THIS to be the fic where I explore ace!Danica, but here we are I guess. I don't how or where this will affect my original smutty smutty plot point, but we're on an adventure so join me as I flail about and try to pretend I know where I'm going. If you have any thoughts on ace!Danica or how I'm portraying her or really ANYTHING ABOUT THIS MESS OF A CHAPTER, please feel free to share. It's the first one I've felt pretty insecure about, so much so that I actually slept on it and came back to it a day later, after a week of three false starts (which are up on my tumblr if you're curious about what this chapter almost was but now isn't. i'm raevenlywrites there as I am in almost all places hooray for consistent self branding.)
> 
> Original notes and summary copy/pasted for posterity
> 
> OH MY GOD THIS ATE MY BRAIN I made THREE STARTS at this beast and I'm still not happy with itblaaaaaaaarg -.-
> 
> In which I explore Rei and Danica and figure out that maybe I never shipped them as much as I thought I did :/  
> \--  
> okay i'm not being fair i just didn't expect this to take this turn and now gonna let myself sit on it for a while a decide if I like it or not
> 
> ETA: (yes I realize I could just delete the above but WHY. THIS IS MY JOURNEY DAMNIT.) (...okay but I COULD move it to the notes hold on brb)


	12. Belief

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which its high time everyone settles down about things, and more oaths get tossed around because apparently that's a theme now

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Am I falling into an overwriting trap? Maybe. Was the original extremely underwritten? Yes. Clearly I will pay for the sins of the fathers with equal but opposite sins XD

Rei and I held hands as we emerged from the dark into--more dark. Zane had promised the _rsh_ wasn’t as dim inside as it seemed, but I missed the sun. And I was grateful for Rei’s hand in mind as we moved through the tight press of netting and vines.

There was an uncanny beauty to it, this joining of intention of happenstance, a closeness that I might have found comforting if I hadn’t felt so stifled already. Rei’s hand seemed too thick and hot in mine, but I stuck close to him anyways, unnerved by the walls of the _rsh_. They seemed to slither and switch, and it wasn’t until we rounded a corner back into the main room that I realized their movement came from the shifting shadows cast by a dancing flame.

Once a fire was lit in the central room, the entire space transformed. Where net and leaf began became much clearer, because the nets, I could now see, had once been bright, vibrant colors. Time had dulled them, and I could only imagine the brilliant jewels they must have once been, however long ago.

They say our peoples have been at war for over two thousand years.

They also say the falcon empress Cjarsa is older still than that.

It seems petty to doubt such magic when I myself have knit closed minor wounds with only the power of my voice and prayer. But surely, surely, some myths need not to be true. I didn’t want to believe our war was that old. And I didn’t know what to make of an empress that was supposed to remember a time we knew peace, but did next to nothing to help us return to it.

Zane startled me from my thoughts, even as my mind played back the last few seconds and realized I had noticed my guards shift around me and had simply dismissed it. It wasn’t _Zane_ startling me, it was the interruption from my introspection in general.

“It’s eerie, isn’t it?” he asked, gazing at the wall and not me. “There’s a _rsh_ just like this on the edges of the marketplace, with a central room just like this one, but...”

He trailed off, dropping the hand he’d been reaching out to a broken twist of net. It amazed me how it still stood at all, and I said as much.

“This one is more vine than net, I think,” he said carefully. “It takes time and patience to grow up walls like this. And even more to bring them back down.”

I humphed under my breath.

“Everyone keeps talking around me lately, in pretty metaphors--or obvious ones.”

He turned wide eyes to me and I gave him back what I hoped was a single arched brow. It was a difficult expression to master, without screwing up the rest of my face to be comical. Apparently it was effective though, or Zane was being polite at my failure when he smiled with a soft shake of his head.

“That one was for me, actually. If you feel the tearing down walls metaphor is apt for yourself as well, then hopefully it means we’ll be able to find more common ground before the week is out.”

My stomach dropped at the reminder that I was expected to stay here, with him--and Rei--for an entire week. It had seemed like such a good idea at the farmhouse, staring into the triumphant face of Alasdair.

“You said your dancers dance around the sign of the Anhleh,” I said, not caring how obviously I was changing the subject. “Do you think there’s one intact here, or...” I gestured lamely at the walls. Zane gave me another humoring smile.

“This nest is dead, a relic. I’m afraid if you want to see serpiente dance before the Anhleh you’ll have to come back with me to sha’Mehay.”

It was only my blood running cold that kept my cheeks from flushing. The terror at the thought of willingly entering the heart of the serpiente palace cooled any embarrassment at the thought that I might have been asking him to dance, here and now.

You want to do this here, now? Rei’s voice echoed in my head and the blush won out. Zane chuckled.

“Is the thought of merely watching others dance too much for you, pretty Danica? I knew hawks were prudes but--”

“I’m not a prude!” I snapped, and instantly regretted it. Softer voices could be politely ignored in this close space. Quiet shouting could not.

I felt Rei crowd closer behind me and suddenly wanted out of this hole in the ground.

“Rei,” I ground from between my teeth, “you _cannot_ hover over me all week. I meant what I said to Erica, and I’ll say it again to you too. I don’t need a soldier, I need a guard. Go fly a scouting circuit, see how obvious the smoke from that fire is above the trees.”

It was almost certainly the wrong thing to say. But he met my orders with a tight, “Yes, Shardae,” and gave me the space I so desperately needed. Now if only I could order myself up and into the sun.

Zane was studying my face, and didn’t have the manners to try to disguise it when I turned back to him. Or maybe it was a cultural thing. Maybe serpiente just openly stared at everyone. Either way, my emotions were too wrung out for niceties anymore. I’d spent the better part of a week either traveling or trapped in fruitless arguments, and I just needed a _break_.

“This is the most emotion I’ve ever seen from you,” Zane commented before I could speak. “It’s a shame it’s all tense and jagged like this. I have a feeling you’d have a lovely aura in more pleasant times.”

At that, I could only blink.

“W-wha?”

Zane did that sad smile, headshake thing that was definitely starting to seem like his go to cover up for laughing at me.

“In our scaled form, serpents taste heat. Life. Alive-ness. Like this, I can still taste your heartbeat, smell the sticky sharp closeness of panic on the back of my tongue--“

“That’s disgusting,” I said, nearly sick from the thought of it. How could serpiente stand to be so close to one another if they were so aware of each other’s bodies?

“It’s a metaphor,” he said lightly, colder than he’d been a moment before. “We sense it with a sense that isn’t taste or smell or touch, but it's like trying to describe a song to the deaf. I can hold your hand, tap out the beats, but you still miss the soaring of the melody, the finer notes that make it music and not just sound.”

I nodded, contrite at having offended him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend.”

He sighed. “It’s quite alright. I can only imagine it will be the first of many.”

Something about that made me unspeakably sad. So sad that it changed my “taste” apparently, because Zane reached out for me, to brush my arm I think. But of course Erica was there, and I finally lost my temper completely.

“Enough!”

I snatched Zane’s hand in mine, earning startled cries from everyone in the room, even Adelina. I raised our joined hands and shook them, like brandishing a weapon.

“Zane and I are going to touch. Zane and I are going to be close, because Zane and I are _trying_ to have private conversations. If one more person comes within a foot of me without my express invitation I am going to send them home. So help me I will sit in his lap if that’s what it takes to get you all to _stand down_.”

Abruptly, I became _aware_ of the fact that I was holding Zane’s hand, that I had taken it without his permission, and that the whole room was staring at us. I squeezed his hand tighter, not knowing how to get off this metaphorical dias.

Zane squeezed back.

“It’d be almost worth it to call your bluff,” he muttered, but then said to the larger group, “Is there something we can do to help make you all more comfortable? Among my people, we have elaborate rules and traditions for guests, and I do consider you all my guests, even as I consider myself yours. In my house, I would offer you food and drink, and you would know that no harm would come to you unless violence was offered. What is the way of it in the Keep?”

In the Keep, violence was absolutely unheard enough. We had enough of that on the fields, on the training grounds. There was no violence in the Keep because it was our refuge from such things.But that wouldn’t help us here.

“We are held by our word,” Raymond said. I startled, almost having forgotten the quiet raven in the press of so many louder personalities. “Words spoken by or to the Tuuli Thea have power, real power, especially in the halls of our Keep. I do not know how such oaths would hold you, but it is what we would do, if we felt the need.”

Zane nodded. “We have our own words, codes of conduct, contracts.” He turned to me, pulling our hands closer to our chests.

“So you have said you would rather lay down your life than fight another day, so too do I, Arami Zane Cobriana, say that I would rather lose my life than take another. Should this hand harm another in anything but self defense, let it be striken from me. Let my legs be broken and my skin be burned if I do break this oath.”

It was a ghastly thing to say, and its gruesomeness called my mind back to the glittering scaled pants he’d worn at the Mistrai camps. Maybe casual violence really was more common among the serpiente. Either way, it was my turn to either accept his bloody oath, or go back to fighting and bickering.

“As heir to the Tuuli Thea, I accept your oath. These hands we bind to building, not destruction. May they create a thing of beauty together.”

“Amen,” Raymond murmured, with a fervent light shining in his eyes. I returned his smile, buoyed up by his belief. If he could believe in peace, watching the woman who would have been his family in better times hold hands with a cobra, then it couldn’t be that impossible.


	13. Long Live the Queen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which its high time Nacola decide if she's ready to give up the throne or not

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is becoming increasingly clear to me that this is the serious one, and its maybe time to just go write a whole separate one to be the sexy one :P

I couldn’t settle after the oaths. I just couldn’t. The ground seemed to hum with power, and as much as I wanted to do my part to be agreeable, I could not focus on peace talks while my head sang with ancient resonance. I felt half-blinded by ghosts, though as Zane had said scent wasn’t the word, sight wasn’t right for what I was sensing either. It was as if my body was trying to inhabit a different life, moving through steps that were not my own. Something important to the Shardae magic had happened here, and under other circumstances I might have been intrigued, even followed where it led. But I could not focus on either it or Zane, so eventually I gave up on both and asked to return to the farmhouse. If Zane was disappointed to leave this place of such significance to his people--and apparently mine--he didn’t show it.

I sent Karashan towards the serpiente lands and Raymond to the Lyssia farm, both looking out for the serpiene guards that would be coming to join Adelina and Zane. The rest of us walked with the serpiente, I in deference to their lack of wings, and my remaining guards split between ground and skies as was their formation when I was in the fields. So we had plenty of advanced warned when Raymond returned with news of a small army.

Army was too strong a word for the score of soldiers, but it was exactly the word for their intent. They had swarmed the Lyssia farm and set up a base--so that my mother and her branch of the Royal Flight could land in safety.

The air in the farmhouse had shifted considerably. Where the Ladies Lyssia had been careful but relaxed around myself and Zane, they were positively on edge around my mother. Maybe the difference was the swarm of soldiers, but having felt exactly this way in my mother’s presence myself, I was fairly confident she was the cause.

Power poured from her, responding to the emotions we usually kept so carefully leashed. It would take a song to give it concrete shape, but there were battle cries as well as lullabies in our body of hymns.

I held to Zane’s hand tightly, partly to extend my shield of control to him, partly to keep my body firmly in line with whatever shot any soldier might take. I knew I couldn’t guard him from every angle, but this was the best I could do.

My head still rang with power, distant echoes of that long forgotten memory we’d raised in the ruins. It wasn’t as blinding as it had been, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was walking in someone else’s footsteps. The wind seemed to whisper in the forgotten tounge as the wings of so many soldiers filled the skies. They circle like vultures, I thought, scenting death on the air. It served to fuel my determination. No more blood would be spilled. I had sworn it.

So had Zane.

We approached my mother hand in hand, her fury lashing out to reach us at the sight. I stood firm, bolstered by the power of my vows and Zane’s hand in mine. I wished I held Rei’s hand in the other, but I understood the man at my right needed to be free to react to whatever may happen. He would always be my soldier first and friend second. It saddened me to know that this war had taken him from me even as he walked beside me still. Raymond on his other side was another ghost, the memory of Vasili so strong in his presence here.

I was filled with an overwhelming sense of having done this before, having faced down this queen before. Only her face kept swimming, the golden aura of her power going ghostly white, silvering with the patina of false memory. I shook it away, even as it cried out at being disregarded. I couldn’t untangle these ghosts right now. I needed to be present.

“Shardae.”

One word held the entirety of my mother’s displeasure. Question, condemnation, concern, command--my mother could get so much mileage out of so few syllables. I’d always wished for such clarity of purpose when I spoke, dreamed of the day I could address the Council or even a single General with such authority. But when I answered her now, I felt my voice cling on the way out, made small by something inside me that did not know how to be anything else.

“Mother.”

“We were most distressed at your letter,” she said, voice utterly void of emotion. It had all leeched into the power that was coursing and snapping around her. “Once we had actually received it.”

Beside her, her closest guards flinched. Just a tightening around the eyes, but it was there. I wondered if standing that near to her was hurting them, or if they were recalling a fuller fury when she’d been given word that her daughter had acted outside her authority.

It was such an odd dance between mother and me now. Something had gone out of her at Xavier’s pyre, burning away as completely as the body of her last son. She’d told me then that my time as queen had come. But then there were moments like this, or when she’d ordered us away from the Mistari camp, that her insistence she step down seemed so... empty. How was I supposed to lead our people without the backing of their current queen? We couldn’t survive a war on two fronts. We just couldn’t.

“We appreciate your concern for Zane’s wellbeing,” I answered, deliberately misinterpreting her meaning. “As you can see, my healing--“

“Danica, please.” Her words cut mine down, slicing through the sorry lie as cleanly as the paper it had been written on. “I don’t know why you felt the need to concoct such a ridiculous ruse. It’s idiocy is what had me tearing through field and forest looking for you. I’d thought it the work of traitors; I know my own daughter would never pen something so ridiculously and obviously false.”

I felt my own anger try to rise, the urge to scream building in the back of my throat. This was why my speech always came out so small; if I gave it any rein at all, it would roar out of me, years of things unsaid pouring out in a vicious wave.

Zane squeezed my hand, distracting me from my control. My eyes darted to him for only a second, but I thought I saw him smiling. Was it his arrogant mask, or was he trying to encourage me?

I gave up trying to craft a delicate response. I simply spoke my mind.

“Why is it so ridiculous, mother? Why is it so hard to believe that if I received word of someone in need of my aid that I could go to them? I sat with Gregory Cobriana even though there was no hope of saving him. Why then would I not sit with Zane Cobriana, if he asked me to come to him?”

Zane’s hand tightened in mine again and I squeezed back, wishing I could give him a smile as well. But I had to keep my composure, both for appearances and for the sake of the power that danced so erratically in the air.

“I was hurt, Nacola,” Zane said, startling us all. “My heart was sick with despair--“

“How dare you!” a guard snapped, though whether it was at his lying to the queen or addressing her by her first name, I couldn’t say. Beside me, Zane said softly, “Adelina.”

I dared to glance at his other side, where Adelina had slipped into that carefully ready pose. With a mad giddiness, I realized it could just as easily be the beginning of a dance as a fighting pose. My heart ached to see Maeve’s kin so ready to fight. Those white scales were the most beautiful in the firelight, dancing with hot reds and golds to compliment the cool blues and purples of my lady’s power--

I shook my head, violently, trying to dispel these double visions. The power was too thick, I couldn’t breathe.

“Enough,” I gasped, though it somehow rang through the space, even though I’d barely had breath to send it on its way. It rode on the eddies of power like a wing on the wind, going where the currents pulled it.

“We should not fight like this,” I said, feeling the words as both my own and not. I gave up trying to dispel the power and just let it guide me. “I would not stand against you, mother of my heart, but neither will I stand with you in war.”

My mother shivered, shimmering in the power that swirled thick between us. Its silver light snaked across her skin, forming almost patterns, almost letters--

“You know I do not desire war,” she said, and again, the words sounded echoed, doubled back on themselves and twisting with whispers of wind. I clutched Zane’s hand tighter. I desperately needed its grounding, something solid and real to keep from falling to these ghosts. I had never seen such magic before--never seen any magic at all. But I had also never stood at the scar between my mother’s power and mine. Maybe that was the difference.

“Then we have no reason to fight,” Zane said, startling us all. Her voice--his--was a misstep, a tiny dissonance in the building song.. But I felt the tide of it, and would not let it slip away. I had sworn to Emune and Raymond on this very ground that this war was ending. I called on that and the words Zane had just spoken to me in the ruins, and hoped they would be enough to shape whatever power we were weaving.

This war was ending.

“These hands are sworn to peace,” I said, feeling my words take us further from that ringing place where the ghosts of the past tried to swallow us down. “Kiesha’s kin has sworn to help me build a peace, and before two of my flight I did so swear that I would reign in peace.” It was an odd choice of words to call on Zane’s ancient ancestor, but it was too late to question the names of power I was drawing on. So much of magic was simply instinct, clinging to whatever ancestral knowledge still guided us.

“So, mother,” I concluded, feeling the power condense as I prepared to hand it off, “will you leave peacefully, or will you have me foresworn?”

Or will you risk my words turn back on me, I added silently to myself, and have me never rule at all?

The air was thick, with power, with tension, with those spidery silver lines that seemed to be the weft of fate itself. I clutched at Zane’s hand in mine, and again was startled by the timber of his light tenor voice against the memory of richer alto that was supposed to go with those scales.

“And I as well. I have sworn to do no more harm save to defend myself, and as Arami of the serpiente that extends to all my people as well. I gave that oath to the heir of the Tuuli Thea, and will give it again when she becomes queen.” He squeezed my hand and gave me a wink, completely at odds with the serious nature of the moment. “Just to make sure it sticks,” he added wryly.

“Enough of this,” my mother said, sounding only like my mother once again. Zane’s wrongness seemed to shattered whatever contest of wills had been building between us--no doubt his intention. “Shardae, this is no place to conduct royal business. If you wish to treat with the serpiente prince further, can we at least move these discussions somewhere more secure?”

“Secure for you,” I heard Adelina mutter, and felt Zane’s spine stiffen. But she had a point.

“We had been intending to spend the week somewhere more neutral,” I said with forced lightness. “The rest of Zane’s guard are already on their way. So unless you intend to invite them all back to the Keep, I think Zane and I are good out here, thanks.”

My mother bristled. “You can hardly expect me to let you spend a week in the wilderness with a serpiente-- Andreios, speak some sense into her.”

I boggled at that. I’d expected her to order me, dismiss me, bodily drag me back to the Keep even. But to entreat Rei?

To my utter shock, Rei took my free hand.

“Until Danica declares me her pair bond, I can only speak as her guard. The Arami has sworn not to harm her. I don’t like it, but it’s not my place to forbid her from doing things I don’t like. I’m sorry, my queen, but your daughter is as headstrong as yourself. No one has ever been able to talk either of you into doing anything you don’t want to. Unless a fight breaks out and I am forced to bodily evacuate her, I don’t think there’s any appeal I can make that I have not already tried.”

Except for that one, I thought, understanding now why he’d taken my hand. The kiss in the ruins hadn’t changed anything for me, but apparently it had been all the go ahead Rei needed to declare himself my pair bond. It made me want to snatch my hand away, but as he’d also said, that was mostly stubbornness. I was grateful for his show of support, and felt powerful with both men on my side. Surely my mother would see now that the tide had indeed shifted, and it was time to let me rule as she kept saying I should.

“So that’s it then,” she said more than asked. “I just return to the Keep and try to calm the tide of frantic people with the reassurance that you just want to take a little camping trip with the Arami of the serpiente?”

“I don’t think Danica cares much for the idea of camping,” Zane said with his false cheer. “The woods didn’t seem to agree with her.” To me, he said more quietly, “If your people need you then you should return. We can continue our talks another time. There’s no need to lose what ground we’ve gained here today through stubbornness.”

I bit back a sigh. “I don’t think you understand my mother. After this little stunt, I’ll be lucky to have only four guards on me at all times. There will be no getting away, and absolutely no way she’ll let you come to me.”

“Is she queen here or you?” he shot back.

Fair enough.

“Prepare the court,” I finally answered her. “Let them know that once Arami Zane’s escort arrives, we will all be returning to the Keep to continue our talks.”


	14. BACK AT THE FARMHOUSE I SEE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Zane draws Danica out, and they talk like relatively normal people

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am apparently a sucker for talking heads doing their baby flirting, apparently. Believe it or not, when I sat down to write, I intended to actually be AT THE KEEP. But no. I cannot leave the farmhouse. The farmhouse is eternal. Zane and Danica shall get married in this farmhouse and have lots of unproblematic babies who will never burn anything down and Syfka will never find them because this backwoods farm is LITERALLY A BACKWOODS FARM
> 
> (also also--HOW are the Ladies Lyssia feeding all these people????? One can only assume there's some sort of standard soldier's packing out kit that involves bowls or something. I'm really glad I had Raymond foraging earli---OH MY GOD I JUST REALIZED THERE'S BASICALLY TWO RAYS IN THIS HOW DID I NOT SEE THAT BEFORE???????)

I sat in a stunned static as the world moved around me. Soldiers departed--some with my mother, some to meet up with Karashan and escort the serpiente guards here--a meal was prepared from the efforts of this morning’s foraging--had it only been this morning?--and the gentle atmosphere of the Lyssia house returned like a fire re-stoked in the early morning. A bowl of stew was set before me, a body sat down on either side, and still I felt detached, unreal. The silvery visions of my mother’s face, of white scales winking red in the fire light, of a voice so familiar yet not heard in centuries dominated my thoughts, pulled at me in subtle whispers, urged me to follow them down untold rabbit holes. And as the worries of my real life loomed impossibly high and higher, the temptation to yield to the memories grew ever stronger.

”--Dani won’t want any of that. Pass it over.”

Rei’s hand and voice cut through my thoughts, reaching over my bowl for the platter Zane was holding. The rich smell of roast rabbit suddenly assaulted me, making me viscerally and unpleasantly present in my own body once more.

Zane held the platter out of reach, regarding me instead of Rei.

“And does your pair bond cut your meat for you as well as select it?” he asked, that smugly amused tone clearly meant to get under Rei’s skin. I felt my cheeks flush, and the heat did nothing for my sense of my well-being.

“He’s not my alastair yet,” I choked out, breathing in shallow pants. “And I don’t eat meat. And he wouldn’t cut it for me if I did. And please get that tray away from me.”

Rei stood slightly from the bench and took the platter, which Zane was finally offering up. Adelina snickered.

“I’d wondered why they were cooked separately. Here I thought your kind just didn’t know the value of seasoning.” She raised her bowl in salute or toast to the elder Elanor, seated at the far end of the table. “I’m quite delighted to be proven wrong on that count. I’ll go rabbit hunting for you any day, Mistress Lyssia.”

“When did you have time to catch a rabbit?” someone muttered, but my attention was too focused on Zane--who’s attention was still too focused on me for my comfort--to catch who. The friendly table chattered resumed, and I snapped under my breath to Zane, “Can I help you?”

Zane stared a moment longer than was really polite by anyone’s standards, I thought, and finally murmured, “Just trying to make sense of what I’m sensing. You’re quite the tangle of emotions, Danica. And rightly so. But one worries, and would like to help, if there’s anything I can do.” He reached for his spoon and added, “That was quite a display the pair of you put on out there. I would think a good hearty meal should help replenish what was lost.”

I blinked, somehow surprised to learn that Zane had sensed it. The cobra garnet was rumored to have all sorts of magic of its own, but it seemed wrong to me somehow that the Shardae magic should be something he could sense. Then again, it seemed wrong to me that anyone could read another emotions, so what did I know. I wished I could clutch my aura tighter, like a blanket or a dressing gown. I felt naked when he talked so frankly about trying to untangle my emotions. He didn’t have any right.

“Don’t.”

His soft word came with an equally soft brush against my hand. I jerked it back out of habit, though I’d held it for strength and solidarity not but hours before. I took a deep breath to steady myself and put my hand deliberately back exactly where it had been. Zane’s lay less than an inch from mine, but I couldn’t bring myself to hold his hand at the dinner table. There was no reason to--and so many reasons not to. Including the very large, very tense one growing more and more tense on the other side of me.

“Don’t what?” I asked, more lightly than I felt. If Rei had a problem with me talking to Zane while we ate--well, on the one hand it was perfectly acceptable alastair behavior. But on the other, he knew me, and knew I had certain duties, which meant certain things he couldn’t protect me from. Forging a good relationship with the king I was trying to build a peace with was one of them.

“Don’t hide from me.”

His voice was tired, and in a weird flash of insight, I realized that was probably the real Zane. Oh, I didn’t doubt that all faces Zane presented came from a place of truth. More like, this is who and what Zane would be in exactly this moment if free from any other pressures or concerned. What an interesting notion, to be “just Zane”, or “just Danica” even. Who would we be if not the young rulers of dying courts, trying to wrest away the momentum of generations of tradition?

It was only after his brows rose in question, his face tilting ever so slightly, that I processed the meat of what he’d really said and not just how he’d said it. Don’t hide from me. Yes, I could see why my sitting silent in response to that would merit this questioning look.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

I’d uttered that phrase countless times in court, with perfect blandness and blankness that I’d practiced hard to copy from my mother. One in her quiver of ambiguous statements that I had finally mastered. Except, I didn’t say it with courtly decorum. I said it with a little smile, and a sideways glance through my lashes, and the hint of a tone I hoped came across as playful.

Zane rewarded my effort with a small smile of his own, though his was touched with a wistful sadness that I wished I could chase away. I liked the Zane that laughed and flirted outrageously and waved from hilltops giddy with excitement over a historical find. The Zane that had seen too much sadness in too few years made me want to flirt outrageously, just to make him laugh at my ridiculous effort.

“That’s a good start, though a little heavy handed.”

I straightened, dropping my playact and actually engaging in the conversation. It was a nice change from dwelling in my own thoughts.

“So you can feel the difference then, between a true emotion and one exaggerated for show?”

He made a waffling noise, mirroring it with a wave of his hand. It settled further from mine, I noticed, but it also seemed more natural now, his whole body language more at ease.

“Emotion is as subtle and varied as hues, or scents. Can you honestly say that you know your own heart, clearly and categorically, at all times?”

Certainly not. Not even at most times. I said as much. “No one can, I don’t think. A child might have emotions simple enough, but they’d lack the framework to name and define them. And the very act of naming and defining them requires a certain amount of distance, thereby changing the emotion before it’s even properly labeled.”

Zane smiled. “Very well put, philosophical Danica.” He gave me a smile to match mine from earlier, and a wink that was all his own.

“Well,” I answered in kind, “at least its a nickname based on my intellect and not my physical attributes.”

Zane chuckled. “Oh, I could happily dwell on those as well, luscious D--“

“Danica would you like some more peas?” Rei asked abruptly. The murmur of friendly table chatter fell to a sudden silence, cut only by Adelina’s deep and unfiltered laughter.


	15. Rhythm and Drum, Melody and Song

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which I intended to talk politics, but instead we learn to grieve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one feels more disjointed than most, but I'm getting used to the idea that I just need to kinda wander my way into the next scene.

Rei stayed stiflingly close, even as we laid down to sleep. After the day I’d had--had it really only been one day?--all I wanted was sleep. I wished I could take comfort in Rei’s protective arm over mine, but what should be a thrilling indulgence was lost to exhaustion.

Karashan arrived in the morning to inform us the modest group of serpiente soldiers were in route, and this time, I sent Rei and Erica out to guide them to the Keep. I wanted a chance to talk to Karashan about how to proceed, and I wanted a break from Rei.

I was regretting the kiss more and more. I should have expected that it would change our dynamic--and indeed, it was meant to--but I missed the support of my best friend. I need my Rei back. I didn’t know who he was an alastair. I didn’t have the extra emotional energy to figure it out right now. So I sent him away, along with the overly reactive Erica, and set out for the keep with the much more level Raymond and Emune. It wasn’t lost on me that this was the pair I’d started with, and that they’d been on duty for over twenty-four hours. And Adelina...

The serpent pair had moved a little ways apart, facing the rising sun. Adelina was turned in such a way that she could watch us from the corner of her gaze, but it was clear the white viper had relaxed over the long stretch of being Zane’s lone guard. Either she was too tired to remain on edge, or I was witnessing the beginnings of our first steps towards peace.

I was also watching, I realized, the pair of serpents dance.

What I thought had been simple stretches, much like those of my Flight, were actually the precursor to a series of steps, slow and long and languorous. Hands reached high, fingers outstretched, the dancer’s up on the balls of their feet. They swayed like the trees, moved by a subtle wind that I could not see, but they could clearly feel. There was a musicality to their motions that I swore I could almost hear, an echo of memory...

“Best not to stare too long,” Karashan said, startling me from what certainly felt like a trance. I blinked too rapidly as I turned to her.

“Don’t tell me you believe all those lies about hypnotism.”

Karashan arched an eyebrow. “From what I hear tell, the Shardae magic was alive and wild yesterday, nearly coming to a full Song between you and your mother. You think our side is the only one with magic?”

I knew we weren’t, but surely it was an active thing, not something that happened simply by admiring them in the early morning sun.

I realized my gaze had drifted back to them, and Karashan gave me a knowing nod that made me want to duck my shoulders. I reacted as I always did by standing straighter.

“I want you to tell me all you know as we walk, and hopefully Zane and Adelina will offer their side of things. I know,” I said, raising my hand to forestall her obvious statement of distrust. “If they are planning something, why would they tell us about their strengths and weaknesses. I know. Believe me, General, I’ve spent much of the past several days thinking these exact same thoughts. We must proceed in good faith. As I’ve said again and again, if I am meant to fall by Zane’s hand then so be it. I will not live as if we are enemies. Peace has to come from within our hearts.”

“Peace comes from within people’s bellies,” the older crow said, “Or their pockets. Hearts are a luxury. An important one, granted, but still a luxury. If you want the Generals to follow you, you’ll have to tempt them with things more substantial than hearts. A man who’s known only war will seek only war, unless you give him something more tempting to do.”

“I should like your advice on how to handle the generals as well,” I said, noting from the corner of my eye that Zane and Adelina were wrapping up. “Either privately or in conjunction with Zane.”

I felt a headache beginning to form at my temples. Too many days in a row of too little sleep, too many worries, and too much uncertainty. How was peace proving to be more taxing than war? Or was I simply trading in one war for another? Karashan was right that the general’s council was the real problem. People like Elanor’s aunts were already living in a practical peace with their serpiente counterparts. War out here meant disruption to the vital activities of daily life. War in the council hall meant about as much as particularly compelling duel or chess match. They had all started their lives as actual soldiers, yes. But the pawns had made it across the board and now sat comfortably with the power of queens.

I was getting tired of all these too apt metaphors.

-

“Our monarchy isn’t quite as defanged as yours,” Adelina said, apparently oblivious to the pun. “The Cobriana’s have always led their people into battle personally--but then, well. You saw Gregory.”

The normally brash woman grew pensive, eyes scanning the trees for potential threats, but also to avoid looking at either Zane or me. Zane’s youngest brother, Gregory Cobriana, had been only fourteen when he’d died on the battlefield. I’d lost my youngest brother Xavier in same battle. Xavier had been there to sing our people into strength; his gifts had always run strongest towards shields of subtlety and hiding. While not creating true invisibility, such songs did give our soldiers a measure of unnatural stealth needed to match the natural speed and athleticism of serpiente soldiers. I had no idea what advantages the Cobriana brought to their people. Gregory had died in my arms just as slowly and awfully as any avian I’d ever sang to their final rest.

I wrapped my arms around myself, cold and miserable. I was not used to so much walking, and my heart and body were equally sore. I tried not to let my discomfort show--espeically in light of Zane’s extrasensory awareness of my emotional state--but the memory of holding Gregory’s dying body was awful, and I was already so exhausted.

Zane’s shoulder brushed mine and I startled, coming to a stop. I gave him questioning eyes; Zane was entirely too bodily aware to ever brush me on accident. His eyes were lost, wide and dark and haunted. Had he been anyone else, I might have taken his hand.

And why not? Just because he was Zane Cobriana? I’d held Gregory’s, why not his?

“You were the last person on earth to feel his heartbeat.”

That statement stopped me cold, hand almost reaching for his, but not quite.

“Yes?” I made the word a question, an invitation to speak further. I had no idea where he was going with this.

“I...”

His eyes rolled shut, closed down with pain, face falling away even though he was no longer looking at anything. Adelina came up behind him, hand resting on his shoulder, body molded to his back. It should have been unseemly, but it was so obviously a gesture of comfort I could see no impropriety in it.

Adelina looked at me from over Zane’s shoulder.

“Among our people, we process our grief by sharing it. A burden carried by many hands is no burden at all.”

Zane pressed back into Adelina, eyes still closed, but face smoothing. I felt suddenly awkward, not at their display, but at the idea that my presence could add anything to it. This was so far removed from anything I’d ever seen in my own court--

Except, didn’t I also let Rei hold me this way, in those quiet moments alone when it was all too much. The only difference was the serpents weren’t hiding it.

And that they were asking me to join them.

“Please,” Adelina said, startling me with the softness of her petition. “As he said, you were the last to feel his brother’s heart beating. If it moved you at all, share that grief with us. Let us remember him with you.”

What could I do but nod and offer them my hand?

It felt too intimate to take his in mine while Adelina was holding him. Somehow, pressing my hand over his heart felt exactly right.

His chest was smooth and solid beneath my hand, tight with the developed muscle of practice and use. I felt an obvious mound of scar there, lines and ridges as harsh as the injury that must have caused it. What I didn’t feel was the heat of another living body, the rapid staccato of a frantically beating heart. Zane’s body was cool, barely warmer than the early morning air around us. And his heartbeat was a slow and steady drum, thick and rhythm, the perfect backbeat to the dance I’d seen him doing with Adelina.

Did all serpent’s hearts beat like drums? Or was it only this heart, who had to keep steady so many could follow it?

Gregory’s body had been cool, but I had thought that the effect of his injuries, and oncoming passing. I had thought his body slowed in preparation to be stilled, but Zane’s was just as stilled, just as chilled. Marveling, and acting only out of the distraction of fascination, I touched Adelina’s hand on Zane’s shoulder. Just as cool, just as still, like the unbroken quiet of early morning.

A natural bird will sun itself in the morning, wings spread wide to soak up the sun. A natural serpent will bask at all hours, their bodies at one with the world around them, heat rising and falling with their movement and environment.

A serpiente will bask in emotions in just the same way.

I felt the moment my memory passed to them. Not a literal sharing of recollection, but the emotion of it. The pain, the hopelessness, the helplessness--and the determination to see it through to the end. My guards had urged me to leave him, to pass this one by. Not that one, my lady. Not that one. I had knelt by his side as I would any other, holding his hand and singing songs of peace and comfort. They were never empty, when I sang, though some days it was harder to hold onto their meaning than others. For the magic to work, I had to sing with my whole heart. So I sang to Gregory Cobriana and thought of my brother, and wished desperately that this would be the last. I sang Gregory Cobriana to the ground, and tried to sing the war to sleep with it.

I had not realized I had begun to sing again now. It was only when Raymond’s voice joined mine, filling out the song with the rich tenor tones that I had never gotten to hear from his cousin, my dear Vasili, that I became aware of my currently reality again at all. How easy would it have been to be lost in those memories? How easy to dwell in that dark place that waits behind our eyelids, where past and future swirl and bleed into one another, and time stands still? But Raymond’s song pulled me back, and Karashan joined too with a simple harmonizing alto. I hadn’t realized the general could sing--but of course she could. All soldiers learned to sing, if for no other reason than to recognize the Shardae songs at work.

Only Emune, Zane, and Adelina remained quiet, though I could have sworn I felt the serpiente heartbeats shift under my hand to match the cadence of our joined song.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the feels folks. They snuck up on me too (believe it or not I really was intending to have a rambling walk and talk through the woods about the differences between the serpiente and avian governing styles. but much like real feels, this just snuck up on me and said "we're dealing with this NOW!" so here we are)  
> \--  
> Also, my world building is swirling dangerously close the tweaks I put on this world for my own Asylumverse. This shouldn't surprise me, but it still kind of does. I've always been fascinated with the idea that scales dance magic and feathers sing it, and the way that would blur and blend together in the Dasi. So of course I'm exploring it again here, even though I'm pretty sure I've already written this concept to death in Asylumverse :P  
> -  
> Also also, I S2G Rei/Danica/Zane is still the OT3, it's just taking some time to get there. Dani/Rei is growing into something new, and sometimes a friendship needs distance before it can be reformed into something new. And this wildly jealous new Rei isn't in a place yet to let Danica fall in love with Zane so he must be temporarily yeeted off screen XD


	16. Foundation and Fortress

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danica takes a moment to gather herself before preparing her people for the incoming serpiente

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay! I finally got a new chapter out! Snowmaggedon kind of took all my extra brain power :/ That, and being in the boring middle bits. Could I skip it, sure, but I also don't actually have any major plans for what comes next so muddling along it is!

By the time Rei and the serpiente returned, I was more than ready to surrender myself to the simplicity of my hawk’s form. Zane had the comfort of his actual people now; he didn’t need me. He had Adelina, his actual mate, and whatever friends and lovers he had among his other people. They could help him grieve his younger brother. I had done my part.

On wing, we reached the Keep much faster than the company on foot. I trusted Karashan to keep my people that had remained behind safe and in line. I did not trust those posted at the Keep not to attack first and ask questions later when a group of armed serpents showed up at their door.

But I also didn’t trust myself to deal with them all, not just yet. Between my mother and the generals, and the kiss with Rei, and the heart wrenching memory sharing with Zane and Adelina-- no. I needed a break. And I deserved one.

I alighted far enough from the Keep to hopefully not draw the noticed of any watch, trusting Rei and Raymond to follow. A Shardae never flew anywhere alone, but these two were surprisingly not as stifling as I usually felt with an escort. Raymond kept a discrete distance, resting in a tree in his raven form, while the smaller crow that was Andreios made for the clearing my hawk alighted in. Almost before he’d completely transformed, I had my arms around him.

Rei stiffened, but it was only a moment of surprise, I thought. His arms went around me easily enough, and it was familiar enough to be the source of comfort I’d hoped it would be.

For a brief moment, I wished I could simply share emotion with him as Zane and I had. How much easier would it be to simply let him in, to allow my exhaustion and pain and confusion and doubts wash over him, to have him simply know. But at the same time, I was grateful for the avian reserve that kept us both apart. I didn’t have the strength right now to deal with whatever emotions he might unload on me.

“Dani--“

“Just give me a moment, Rei. Please.”

It didn’t take a serpent’s sense to hear the desperation in my voice. He held me tighter, and I swallowed down a sob. I normally didn’t struggle this much to compose myself. But Zane had asked me not to hide, and it left me slow with my defenses now. I burrowed into Rei’s chest, feeling the strong, familiar heartbeat under my cheek, as steady and constant as the beat of my own hawk’s wings.

Gradually, peace returned, or as much of it as I ever felt. I was steadier, at least, and could stand to pull enough away to look up at him.

“Thank you.”

His look was equally parts amazement and pity. “Dani, of course. You know I’m always here for you. However you need me.”

The words turned me to jelly, and I longed to be able to give into them. Maybe, if I’d ever felt safe enough to feel the full extent of my feelings, his kiss wouldn’t have overwhelmed me. My heart steeled with determination to see the day where I could let myself love, fully, without reservation or fear of loss. I would see myself love this man, and whatever children--

The sharp rasp of Raymond’s raven bark cut through my thoughts. He alighted a moment later, melting into human form. For once, the sight of him did not stir the old pain of mourning Vasili. No, my only thought was dread for the news he delivered.

“Patrols, my lady. The serpiente should still be far enough out, but they won’t be for long.”

Rei’s face hardened, the grim lines of a soldier turning him from grounding rock into shielding fortress once more.

“Shardae, we must go. Whatever plans you have with the Arami, they will all be for not if the last prince of the Cobriana is slain on our doorstep.”

I nodded and took to the air without another word. I wasn’t quite the full respite my heart ached for, but it had been a moment to catch my breath, and to know that Rei still had my back. We would address the kiss another time. For now, he was still my Rei, even under the hardness of Flight Commander Andreios. I would need both in the coming days, and I was beyond grateful to know I hadn’t lost them.  
-  
The Generals were already assembled when we landed, and in fact, had been in council more or less since I’d left. Even when my mother had flown the fields in search of me, they had been amassing information about the serpiente movements, or lack thereof. The charts and maps all over the war room steeled my resolve. I walked right up to one, which I recognized at the section of lands surrounding the Lyssia farmhouse, and pulled it straight down, ignoring the various cries from behind me. My mother, I noted, was absent from the council room.

“Generals.” For once, I sounded as cool and commanding as she, “Kindly help me clean this room up. I am expecting company shortly, and it would not do for Zane Cobriana to see his people reduced to figures and arrows.”

“My lady?” General Viridian asked. As the youngest of my generals, he was most likely to have seen Zane fight personally. I didn’t begrudge him his sudden paleness.

“I can only assume my mother’s absence means she has not informed you of our impending guest, or else the scouting parties would have already been recalled. Speaking of, Rinnman, would you see to that?”

The old goshawk coughed, spluttered, but finally simply stood to do just that. Perhaps it was Rei’s glare from over my shoulder. Or perhaps it was the meticulous way I was shredding the map in my hands. A waste of a good map, yes, but if it got my point across, I would tear down each chart and map and ledger book and record piece by fragile little peace. I was going to be listened to, and I was going to be obeyed.

“You truly intended to entertain him here, my lady?” Viridian asked again. He still had yet to regain his color.

He raised a valid question, and one had I had given my thoughts over to as we flew.

“He will be presented to the court as any visiting dignitary would, yes, but I prefer for a more secure location for our actual peace talks. I would rather keep our guest and his guards in a less central location to the daily activities of the Keep.”

There was the expected murmur at “his guards”, but I didn’t give them the chance to argue. I simply continued issuing orders.

“The Arami and his people will be given the option to stay on the fourth floor as any other dignitary would be granted, or we will commandeer any ground lodgings required. Any family put out of their homes will be given the suites the Arami would have used. I want an honest assessment of who is best suited to working alongside the serpiente guard to keep the peace. Anyone who feels unable to perform these duties is to be given a two week paid leave if they do so now. Anyone who causes trouble after the fact will be exiled, no exceptions. I will not have this go badly because of failings on our end.”

I was met with stunned silence, which wasn’t really that unexpected. What did surprise me was Raymond’s voice, breaking the silence with a shockingly wise suggestion.

“I would have those selected vetted with the serpiente themselves, my lady. They will be able to feel any negative reaction to their presence. Give them a chance to decline the position and take the leave then as well, once they truly know their own hearts.”

I gave what I hoped was a magnanimous nod, giving myself a moment to gather my composure again before answering.

“An excellent suggestion. Captain Andreios and [rank?] Raymond will escort a small band to meet with the serpiente as they approach the Keep. Gather your best people, generals, and assemble them in receiving arounds at the top of the hour. Dismissed.”

I turned and left on knees that did not shake, much to my surprise. I made it all the way to the fourth floor before my insides turned to jelly.


	17. Girl Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Danica has a little chat with the women in her life about love, duty, and treason

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I spent more time that it was worth looking up carrying capacity of European swallows, and the various average speeds of assorted birds, folks on foot, folks on horseback, and folks moving in large groups. I am quite comfortable in assuming that Danica has time for a bath XD

I collapsed languidly into the bath, more thankful than I could say that Elanor had started preparing it when I landed at the Keep. A bath, a change of clothes, and moment to feel like myself was the best welcome home I could have possibly asked for. The only way it might have at all been improved on was if I’d had time to wash my hair. A solid week since we’d left for the Mistari. Maybe more. The days were all starting to blur together, and their accumulated grime clung to me. If only the weight of everything else that had happened in those days could be so easily lifted.

Elanor sat behind me, working scented powders through my hair. The familiarity of the ritual soothed me even more than the heat of the blessedly still warm tub. How many hours had we passed like this, talking and gossiping, her fingers working on my hair or with a needle, her words working on the threads of my thoughts.

“You are a wonder, Elanor. There are no words.”

She laughed and scratched at my scalp, earning her a soft murmur of appreciation.

“I’m still your lady in waiting. And that’s all I’ve doing these past few days. Waiting.”

She said the last with a not so subtle hint in her tone. I joined in her laugh, feeling better about things than I had in days. Talks with Elanor had a way to making everything seem less dire.

“I’m sorry you’ve been kept out of the loop, dear friend. You’re right; there is much to talk about.”

I closed my eyes and drew a deep breath through my nose, trying to gather my thoughts. The soft scents of the water made me sleepy; we’d tried many herbs and flowers of the years in attempts to soothe away my bad dreams. I wondered now if our attempts had only ever succeeded in keeping me asleep, locking me in my nightmares rather than banishing them. I still hadn’t quite come to terms with my apparent sleeping through Zane Cobriana flying madly up to my room those few nights ago.

Nor with my best friend doing said flying.

“I still cant’ believe you snuck Zane up into my room,” I muttered, sinking lower into the bath. “Isn’t that treason or something?”

Elanor’s fingers stilled. I rolled my face up to look at her, shocked to see the dismay on her face.

“Elanor! Elanor, I’m kidding!” I reached to take one of her hands in mine, sloshing water. “Please, it was a joke. I’m not angry. Without you...”

There was no way to know what events might or might not have been set in motion. Perhaps Zane would have been mad enough to scale the Keep walls by hand--or more sensibly, surrender himself like his sister Irene had. I had no doubt Zane would have found a way, so determined he was to end this war. Determined enough to marry himself off to a hawk. My toes curled at the thought. I pushed them aside and focused on my distressed friend.

“We’re all going to have to do drastic things to end this war. Mad things. I’m not angry with you. Just... surprised.”

The look Elanor gave me was so full of grief it took my breath away. It looked so alien on the familiar avian face. It looked too much like Zane, and Adelina, as they’d grieved over the loss of Gregory.

“Dani, you have no idea how scared I was. Zane... he’s very charismatic, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

I nodded, my expression caught between a laugh and a wince. Charismatic seemed an understatement.

“It just all seemed so reasonable, with my aunts’ story of his convalescing in their home, and his words about how you’d tried to work things out at the Mistari, and if he could just see you--“

She cut off, shaking her head. “It feels so stupid now, after the fact. You’re right; it was treasonous. It scares me to know that I could do such a thing. To anyone, let alone to you, Dani. I... I just can’t believe.”

I squeezed her hand, wishing I hadn’t started this conversation while I was in the bath. I wanted to put an arm around her, reassure her that she was still one of my dearest friends. Instead I lay there wet and naked and awkward, wondering how to offer comfort. In times of hurt or grief, I would sing. But to the best of my knowledge, there was no lullaby or ballad for revolutionaries.

“Zane spoke to me of Fate,” I said slowly, trying to see the words before they came out of my mouth. I was going on instinct, and as I’d learned recently, that could sometimes just make things worse.

“He told me Fate brought him to your aunts’ house, and I believe he’s right. Maybe what possessed you wasn’t serpent wiles, but the gears of something larger than any of us.”

I gave up on decorum and decided I wanted out of this tub. “Help me dry off, and let me fill you in on all you’ve missed.” Brightening, I remembered a particular bit of gossip that would certainly lift her mood. “And you can give me some advice on how to proceed with Rei--now that we’ve kissed.”

He girlish squeal was exactly the effect I’d hoped for, and my bubbly, dreamy, daring Elanor was back. I told her of Rei backing me before my mother and all but naming himself my alastair, of the rush and confusion of our first kiss, how badly I wished I hadn’t made such a decision now, with the serpiente en route for peace talks. 

“I’m sure that’s what urged his hand,” Elanor said as she did up the laces at my back. Nearly all of my formal gowns had laces for the demi-wings of my third form. “What with Zane galloping in on a big black horse and asking for your hand.”

“He didn’t ask for my hand,” I shot back, already tired of quelling that rumor before it had even properly circulated. “The Mistari suggested it as an option. Zane and I haven’t had a chance to discuss anything else.”

Elanor snorted but I didn’t let her voice whatever goading point she was about to make.

“Did you know he gave that horse to your aunts? His and Adelina’s. ‘For all the trouble’, apparently.”

Elanor gasped. “That’s-- those horses must be worth a fortune! Gods, and probably cost a fortune to upkeep. Do you think he’ll be offended if they sell them?”

I shrugged. “I have no idea?” Slyly, I added, “Why don’t you ask him when he gets here?”

We lost ourselves in giddy laughter, needing the release. It was so good to laugh with Elanor while she dressed me for the assembly. Almost good enough to distract me from my nerves.

Of course, my mother coming in to strategize about said assembly pretty undid it all that in a matter of seconds.  
-  
Sitting in my ante room, ignoring the tea that Elanor poured before quietly retreating, my mother and I were getting no where.

“You can’t be mad about this, mother. You’re the one who pulled us from the neutral lands we’d already agreed to meet on. What other options were exactly left for us? You made it clear you wouldn’t tolerate us camping in the woods.”

“Danica-- you know why-- that isn’t the point. The point is what exactly do you plan to do with him now. Here. In the heart of your kingdom?”

I resisted the urge to rub at my temples. Instead, I allowed myself a different breech of decorum: honestly speaking my mind.

“I wish all this had happened after I’d taken the throne.”

My mother sighed and nodded. “Agreed. Things would be so much simpler if Rei was already your alastair. Then maybe the Disa might have suggested something useful--or at least something less offensive.”  
It was my turn to sigh.

“Mother, Zane is a perfectly fine gentlemen--“

“He’s a serpent--“

“Who has not once raised a hand against me. Do you understand that, mother? The sheer number of times he could have ended my life by now--“

“That is hardly reassuring, Shardae.”

I grit my teeth. What I wanted to do was scream. What I did was take another careful breath.

“I need you to back me on this, mother. We need to present a united front, one that is in control and unafraid. If we’re seen to flinch around the serpiente, this will never work. The citizenry will panic and the Keep will be bathed in blood in a matter of moments.”

It was one of our most sacred tennets that blood never be spilled within the Keep. Even meat was prepared off the grounds and brought in, to keep the heart of our kingdom free of death. It was at the foundation of our wards, and utterly unthinkable that anyone would dare break the taboo within its walls.

Just as unthinkable as a cobra marrying a hawk.

My mother straightened, and I could almost see her pulling her reserve back into place around herself.

“Of course. We will do whatever it takes to keep our halls secure.”

Hardly a reassuring phrasing, but it would have to do.

“So. What are your plans for introducing this visiting dignitary to your court?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "It was one of our most sacred tennets that blood never be spilled within the Keep. Even meat was prepared off the grounds and brought in, to keep one bright spot in our kingdom free of death. (like disneyland lololol)"
> 
> I am already regretting the chapter before this one. It's not that its not needed, exactly, so much as it feels EXTREMELY circular. This is part of the problem with writing things a few thousand words at a time, over the period of several months. It's not tight. It's not tidy. I can already see places I'd go back and fix things--but if I go back, I will NEVER make it forward.
> 
> *sighs* I don't even know what this thing is. is it a novel? is it a silly thing I do to unwind? no clue. But it still feels rewarding to work on, even if I feel a little lost.
> 
> thank you to everyone who's left comments, encouragements, and support. I think about you more often than you'll know. I promise this rambly mess will wind up SOMEWHERE, even if its no where near as clean and sewn up as it could be. I am not that kind of author. we post blindly and with only the barest pause for typos, and we die like men!
> 
> also, i don't know why I felt the need to sign off at the end of this one XD I promise this isn't like goodbye or anything
> 
> But i AM working on that Dasi High thing, so be sure to check that out, if its something you think you might find interesting. Thanks for reading! <3


	18. Addressing the Court

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danica address her people the night before the serpiente arrive at Hawk's Keep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> why did I think I'd get Zane in the keep tonight? why? hubris, thy name is raev

The courtyard seemed enormous in the evening, the dusky shadows erasing the edges of the crowd as night ate away at the remaining daylight.  
And the remaining time before the serpiente arrived.

I’d flown out and consulted with Zane, bringing with me the soldiers Raymond and Anderios had deemed fit to join the serpiente. We’d all agreed it would be best for their number to camp for the night and approach the keep in full daylight. It would give the two solider groups a chance to acclimate to one another, and it would give me time to assemble and address my people.

My people. I kept thinking of them as if I were already their monarch, already the final voice of authority in our kingdom. In truth, I had no illusions about that; the council of generals had only listened to my mother when it seemed to suit them. But still. The Tuuli Thea swore certain oaths when she took the crown, and those oaths currently bound my mother, not me. We’d let our grief for Xavier get in the way of the transition, putting off the ceremony until our brief mourning period had passed. Tonight, I was forcibly reminded of why my kind did not overly give themselves to grief. There was no energy left for living, if tears were wept for every shed feather. Had I simply gone on with the ceremony after the funeral, this would be my kingdom now, and I would not be waiting stoically while my mother addressed our people.

“And it is our fervent hope that as our Danica has brought peace to those who have fallen, her reign shall bring peace to our lands. It is with that hope that we have invited the serpiente Arami here to continue the talks that began in the Mistari lands. We respect and admire his highness’s courage and tenacity, to journey into the heart of our lands where he so sorely outnumbered--“

I did my best to keep my face completely neutral. This was supposed to be a reassurance of friendly intentions. It sounded more like my mother was advising an ambush.

”--and so we ask that you all remain in your homes if you feel unsafe, to avoid any complications--“

This... this was not what I wanted at all. My citizens weren’t under house arrest. Yes, it would be simpler to just keep everyone out of the way, but I was hardly going to turn the Keep into a militarized zone. That was the opposite of the goal. I wanted the people of the Keep as accustomed to the serpiente as the folks of the fields seemed to be.  
”--and assure you that there will be guards around the serpiente encampment at all times--“

This was ludicrous. We weren’t taking the visiting serpiente prisoner. Where was she getting all this?

”--and any who wish to hear the discourse will be welcome to sit in in the Court’s eaves--“

The Court? Did she really think I was going to have talks with Zane in the middle of the Court, as if we were on trial? I’d already told the generals we would be using the war room. Damn her, she was doing it again! How could I have agreed to let her speak for me?

Because I hadn’t had a choice.

Because she was still technically queen.

The ceremony for the Tuuli Thea was traditionally held on the night of the full moon, when the courtyard was bathed in light. It was the only space large enough to hold all who wished to witness, from the highest ranking raven to the lowliest sparrow farmer. The new queen would accept oaths of fealty from her Royal Flight, her generals, and any subjects who wished to pledge themselves to the Tuuli Thea. Most often, only the youngest folks did so, adding their faith and vows to the generations’ before. Each oath was a stone added to the magics that protected our fortress. It was a celebration of those of us that remained, a small but determined link added to the chain of our proud people.

I had put it off, because in the face of Xavier’s death, I could not spend the night looking into the faces of so many young people, as fresh and full of life as my brother had been. As Zane’s brother had been. Truly, Gregory’s pained face still haunted the dark space behind my eyes when I closed them in search of strength. It was a small mercy that the last sight I had of Xavier was strong, and determined.

No, I had been unable to bear the thought of looking into the eyes of so many youths that mirrored my last thoughts of my brother, knowing that in them all I would see was the pain of a dying cobra.

So now I sat, as my mother hedged her bets and refused to commit, and knew I only had myself to blame.

”--and so we invite you all to help us welcome the serpiente to the Keep, and move forward towards peace and prosperity. And with that in mind, I now invite my daughter, Danica Shadae, future Tuuli Thea, to deliver her announcement.”

I felt myself stare as if struck by a hammer, as my mother turned to beckon me forward. Zane’s arrival had been my announcement; she’d already delivered and mangled that. What more did she expect me to say.

“Give them something to look forward to,” she whispered as she kissed my cheeks in acknowledgement. “To take their minds off their fear.”

I blinked. It was a good idea, but she’d given me no time to prepare. I could see that to her, things were apparently going exactly as we’d discussed. I felt like a sleepwalker, trapped in a nightmare about having to recite a ceremonial ballad with no preparation. If I had suddenly aged backward and lost all my clothes, I would not have been less startled than I was now. At least then I would know it was truly a nightmare. This, unfortunately, was all too real.

I squared my shoulders, drew a deep breath, and plastered by practiced smile to my face.

“Good evening, friends and flock. It warms my heart to see all of you gathered here so quickly. I’m sure you’re all very anxious for news of how things went with the Mistari.”  
Nope, almost certainly not. Surely in my time spent running around in the woods with Zane Cobriana, various news and rumors had already spread. They were looking for something new. This was a disaster.

“As my mother stated,” I fumbled, “the serpiente will be arriving in the morning. Talks at the Misatri were cut short because Zane’s sister announced that she was expecting--“

 _Give them something to look forward to.’_ Gods. These folks couldn’t care less about another Cobriana. I realized now my mother had all but cornered me into announcing my alastair. Rage flared, sudden and irrational. She was right, it was a good move, but this wasn’t what we’d talked about. I did not appreciate her maneuvering me into making the decisions she wanted.

“And has asked that I sing in the birth.”

Not true, not true, so not true. The Shardae magics did not take kindly to my lie, but as I didn’t know it was untrue, I was technically in the clear. Still, I felt my confidence waver as I continued to build this fabrication. I couldn’t have done so as queen, standing on the stones that had accept my vows to serve my people loyally and faithfully. But as only Danica, young and untried and flying in the face of tradition...

“It is my dearest hope and honor that I will be able to bless this child with words of peace that it will actually live to see. That it will live and grow beside my own child, and they will know each other to be dear family.”

I felt a pulse as my words rang out, that eerie, double-ghost echo, that sensation that these words had been said before.

“Tomorrow, we welcome Kiesha’s kin into our home. I hope you all will join me in welcoming them into our hearts.”


	19. Among the People

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danica spends some time mingling, and so does Zane

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy the Easter Egg that is Marus's mom--clearly she has a thing for ravens and crows ;)

I couldn’t sleep this night, and there was little point in trying. So I stayed among my people, hoping my presence would reassure them where my words might have failed. I had never been more grateful for my people’s habit of holding our emotions close; it kept my fury with my mother’s milquetoast words at a manageable distance.  
She was better than this. I’d heard her give inspiring speeches all my life, words that inspired hope where it was waning, fervor where it was lost. I could only view tonight as an act of sabotage, and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why. What would she have to gain from undermining me, and the peace I was trying to build? Was it not what we all were working towards?

On the one hand, I wanted very much to speak with her, to demand an explanation. But on the other... well, I had sort of given up. From the moment the Disa suggested marriage, my mother had been shut down. There was more at work here than the surface negotiations of peace. My mother seemed deeply disturbed at the notion of my life deviating from her plan for it--and that was just too bad. It was my life, my reign, my people. Her ways and her mother’s ways and her mother’s mother’s ways had not led to any resolution. I was willing to try something new.

But I was never alone with my thoughts for too very long. It was rare for the Shardae to mingle nowdays outside of festivals and holy days, so many were eager for my attention. Many offered wishes for my continued good health, simple excuses to engage and be near. More than I wished expressed their condolences for our “wasted trip” out to the Mistari, which I politely redirected back towards the news of Irene’s expectancy. Those that topic did not turn away expressed interest in my singing in the birth, and did that mean that I would be returned to my work with the midwives, now that I would no longer be needed on the battlefields? It was an excellent question, and one I hadn’t considered, but found that my answer was an eager yes. It did much to buoy my spirits to think my family gifts returned to acts of growth rather than simply easing the pain of loss. Perhaps even my mother--

I didn’t care to think on my mother overly much this night.

So I stayed among my people until well after moonset, making note of those faces that stayed, those that seemed cautiously hopeful, and those who’s distrust and disdain I’d had to redirect. There weren’t many who lived directly in and around the Keep; I knew most by family name at least, from the Lyssia tailors to the jewelers who ran the Aurita, to the Silvermead blacksmiths and soldiers. 

One I did know by first name, Jeanne Kejamarl, approached me much later in the evening. I remembered her from our shared school days, when I was still learning to shape my letters and reading only the simple sentences chalked on the board. The children of the Keep were all raised and educated together, because there were so few. So while I had little cause to interact with the Kejamarl tanneries directly, I knew Jeanne by name, though I wouldn’t call her a friend now, the way I did Elanor.  
Which I only considered because of how utterly forward her question was.

“Forgive my asking, Shardae, but why wasn’t Captain Andreios by your side this evening?”

I blinked, long and slow and foolish. My brain felt like thick mud, unwilling to allow my thoughts to rotate and pivot this conversation change with any speed.

“I know it’s not my place to question, but if you’re not going to announce him your alastair....”

Jeanne’s cheeks colored, and I realized with shock and horror the direction this conversation was headed, too late to head it off. She was interested in Rei, and I had dragged my feet so long that others were wondering if they might court him.

It wasn’t entirely uncommon for young adults to pursue one another. Yes, alastairs were often chosen for children in their infancy, but tragically all too often, those alastairs and pairbonds did not live to see adulthood. And while it was traditional for men to take the role of alastair--chivalrous protectors--it wasn’t unheard of for a would be pairbond to express her interest in being pursued. And Rei was handsome, and highly ranked, and courteous and thoughtful and dependable--

The thought of his lips against mine came surging back, filling my own cheeks with heat. Luckily, Jeanne misinterpreted my reaction for embarrassment at the topic--or maybe not so much a misinterpretation--and quickly backed off.

“I’m so sorry, m’lady, I shouldn’t have asked.” She ducked her head, chin all but tucked to her chest as she tried to make herself small. “It’s just after all the rumors of the Arami’s proposal, and with Rei’s absence--“

“He didn’t propose!”

I snapped a too rapid answer in a furious whisper, too caught up in my own snarl of emotions to keep my usual decorum. 

“I don’t know who started that stupid rumor but I would really appreciate it if people stopped speculating about my private life!”

Jeanne looked up, horror warring with curiosity. It was utterly unlike me to be so emotional--and if she was a lover of gossip, this was too good to miss. I cursed inwardly and did my best to regain my composure.

“Jeanne, please. It has been an excruciatingly long day, week, all of it, and I am tired of my love life being the topic of so much discussion. It’s unseemly, don’t you think?”

“Yes, m’lady, of course. I shouldn’t--“  
“No, you shouldn’t. And I would ask you please to keep others from discussing it as well? I have enough to deal with right now.” I sighed, hoping to use the show of emotion to my advantage. “I hope to start my own family under the light of peace, not in the shadow of my brother’s funeral.”

“Yes, m’lady. Gods above, yes of course. I’m so sorry.”

I reached out, laying the lightest touch on her arm. “Please. I don’t need your apologies, just your consideration. You knew me when I still couldn’t form my S’s front ways.” She smiled at the shared memory, and how ridiculous it was that I couldn’t write out “Shardae”. “Please give me the room to be just Danica where I can. There are so many places where that won’t be possible.”

“Of course, my--Danica.”

I smiled, trying to positively reinforce the behavior. My mother had become distant from our people, and by extension, me. So many of them had expressed a desire to see us out and among them again. If I could befriend my people again, help them see this shift as a positive one, become their darling, golden young queen, perhaps it could help me regain the power our family had lost to the generals. I could sell them an idealistic young family, a vision of the future that was shiny and bright.

Maybe, if I sold it hard enough, I might believe it myself.

“Rei is back with the serpiente, helping keep the Arami safe.” Jeanne’s eyes widen, and I nod, leaning closer as if in confidence. “There’s no one else I would trust with so high a priority. Here among my people, I could not possibly be safer. But I worry for Zane--as my mother said, this is an extremely brave thing for him to be doing. I hope my people will greet him with courtesy and dignity, but I am too pragmatic to trust his safety to anyone less than Rei.”

There. Maybe using his nickname twice will drive the point home. Of course, a part of me whispers that if I just declare my intentions on him here and now that would end all of it. I have no reason not to. Everyone assumes I’m as good as his pairbond. But for some reason I don’t--probably because I worry the story will grow in the telling, much like my “proposal” from Arami Zane. No, when I’m ready for word to spread, it will be through an official announcement, not from wildfire gossip from an old schoolmate. I release her arm and take a step back, letting some of my weariness show on my face.

“Now I think its time I take my leave. We all have a big day tomorrow. I should try to sleep while I can.”

I take another step back and melt into my golden hawk’s form, trusting whoever is on my most personal guard duty to peel off and follow as they always do. Only I don’t fly up to my balcony on the far side of the Keep. Instead, I turn my flight towards the east, and the waiting encampment of serpiente.  
-  
I am not so foolish as to have not considered this to be a potential invasion. I have let a score of serpiente warriors within an hour’s flight of the heart of my kingdom. But as I have said, more times than I care to, I refuse to behave as if Zane will betray me. It will either happen or it won’t. If a cobra is destined to slay a hawk again, then I have made peace with it being me. Our people began with one golden queen, if they are to end with simply one, then Fate will have her way no matter what we design.  
And honestly, they could do worse with a conquering monarch than Zane Cobriana. From what I have seen, he is fair, just, considerate, and generally in favor of art, self-expression, the well-being of his people--

I bank and circle back, realizing my mental wandering has allowed my wings to wander as well. I am too tired to think, but thinking is all I seem to be able to do. I want to see Rei, to wrap myself in the warmth and comfort of his arms to maybe try another few kisses, softer and gentler this time, to reassure myself that my life has not turned completely upside down. Instead I am circling around the encampment, having flown right over it while thinking of Zane Cobriana’s qualities as a king.

I realize as I circle in to land that partially my mistake was due to the sheer size of the gathering. I don’t know what my distracted mind must have made of the numerous campfires now dotting the fields, a small village perhaps, but it is certainly too many for the two score of soldiers or so that should be out here. This gathering is nearly twice that, centered around a ring of figures--

Dancing.

Zane and Adelina are dancing, with six other serpents besides. They weave in and out of each others’ steps, intricate rings within rings, scales flashing in every color of the rainbow.

Serpiente warriors can grow a scaled demi form, much like the large, angelic wings we avians sprout. While ours are used to give us an aerial advantage in battle, theirs provides a natural amrour that only the keenest arrow can pierce. And much like our wings can be used as an expression of beauty, an elegant backdrop to fine garments and jewelry, so are the serpiente before us using their scales now. Lines of color sparkle like living veins of gemstones, from the iridescent white of Adelina’s viper, to rich reds and greens of dancers I do not know, to the shimmering obsidian of Zane’s cobra.

They are a perfect complement to each other, his dark hair and scales reflecting red in the firelight, hers glinting gold like a low harvest moon. They sway and swirl, moving around each other and through their fellow dancers as if bound by an invisible chord. It is heartbreakingly beautiful, and I understand why every one of my subjects simply stands and stares. It is like nothing any of us have ever seen before, except maybe the soldiers.

I remember the ready pose Zane and Adelina fall into so easily, and thinking how perfectly it would transition to either dance or combat. I am mesmerized by the dance; I can only imagine how impossible they might seem to fight. I am struck with the sudden realizaiton that our survival til now seems nothing short of miraculous. Without the falcon’s am haj to allow us to fight with such lethality from the skies--

I want nothing more to do with this line of thought, so I land, picking a spot far enough away from the dancing serpents so as not to startle anyone.  
The avians in the crowd all know the silhouette of my hawk’s form, but it is late, and I am trying to be discrete. Still, several soldiers peel away, bowing swiftly as they make a report.

“No trouble yet, your majesty. As you suggested, the serpiente are well able to sense intent. None were allowed past the outer perimeter that were anything other than curious.”  
Curious. I should have thought of that. Raymond steps up at my side, and I realize he was one of the ravens flanking me.  
“Erica flew in during your mother’s speech, m’lady, with a message from Zane and Andreios. Neither one of them say any harm in letting a few come and see, but--well, I wished they’d said it was more than just a few. I never would have fielded such a decision for you if I’d thought--“

“It’s alright,” I say, holding up a hand. “If Zane allowed it, and Andreios cleared it, then I trust their judgement. I didn’t even think folks would venture out, so they’re steps ahead of me.” I gave Raymond a tired smile. “In all things security, I don’t mind letting Rei make decisions. It’s matters of battle and war I wish to be consulted on. Allowing a few--okay, more than a few--curious folk out to meet our guests...”

I trailed off, feeling sick at the idea of how poorly this could have gone. We were treading the most precarious line, and I’d barely thought any of it out.  
And Zane had simply come, trusting.

I should have worked something else out. I never should have asked him to come here--

“Dani.”

Rei was suddenly before me, undoubtedly alerted to my presence here. Too tired to care anymore who saw or what they thought, I let myself fall into his arms. This was all I’d been seeking. I hadn’t meant to stumble onto more trouble, more problems--I just wanted to be held, and get some sleep.

“Do you have a tent sent up?” I asked, trying at least to keep my voice between just the pair of us.

“For you? No, but we can--“

I shook my head. “Yours is fine. I’m exhausted, we’re in the field. There’s no where safer for my than by your side, right?”

Rei sighed, but I could see him caving in. “I mean, ostensibly you were safer back at the Keep, but yes.” He tucked his arm over my shoulder, with all the familiarity of an alastair in private. “Come on. Let’s get you to bed.”


End file.
